English Language Arts
Handwriting Without Tears
K - 2nd Grade
3rd - 5th Grade
Benefits of Handwriting Without Tears
- Structured Approach: Handwriting Without Tears provides a structured and systematic approach to handwriting instruction, ensuring consistency and continuity across grade levels.
- Multisensory Learning: With its multisensory techniques, Handwriting Without Tears engages students in hands-on activities that cater to diverse learning styles, making handwriting enjoyable and accessible to all.
- Preparation for Success: By mastering both print and cursive handwriting, our students are equipped with essential communication skills that will serve them well in their academic journey and beyond.
Elementary English Language Arts
Below you will find information that can be used to assist families in understanding what ELA Skills and content are taught in each unit.
Click the tabs to view the curriculum by grade.
Kindergarten
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- Unit 1: Plants and Animals Have Needs
- Unit 2: Every Story Has Characters
- Unit 3: Rules at Home and School
- Unit 4: Writers Tell Many Stories
- Unit 5: Technology at Home and School
- Unit 6: Stories Have a Message
- Unit 7: Holidays and Celebrations
- Unit 8: Weather and Seasons
- Unit 9: Meeting Our Wants and Needs
- Unit 10: Forces and Motion
Unit 1: Plants and Animals Have Needs
- Essential Question:
- Why do Living things have different needs?
- Enduring Understandings:
- Animals and plants need certain things, including food, water, air, and space to survive.
- Animals and plants have traits, parts, and structures that keep them alive and help them grow and reproduce.
- Unit Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- grow
- need
- survive
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts (Teacher Read Aloud)
- “Grow, Pumpkin, Grow”
- “Lessons from Mama Bear”
- What Do Animals Need?
- What Do Plants Need?
- Shared Readings (We Read)
- “Baby Mice”
- “Bears Eat Honey”
- “Parent and Baby Animals”
- “Plant Parts”
- “Soil, Water, Air, and Light”
- “Tommy”
- “What Animals Need”
- Decodable Readings (Students Read)
- A to Z Animals
- I Am Big
- I Can Do It
- “I Know My ABCs”
- “I Like”
- “My ABCs”
- On the Farm
- The ABC Train
- Complex Anchor Texts (Teacher Read Aloud)
- Concepts About Print Skills
- Letter Recognition
- Words Are Made of Letters
- Words Are Separated by Spaces
- Directionality: Read Left to Right
- Phonological Awareness Skills
- Recognize and Produce Rhyme
- Phoneme Isolation
- Phonics Skills
- Primary Skill:
- Alphabet Review
- m (initial, final)
- short a (initial, medial)
- Spiral Review:
- n/a
- Primary Skill:
- High Frequency Words
- I
- like
- eat
- Fluency Skills
- Rate and pausing
- Read and sing alphabet song
- Expression and intonation
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Ask and Answer Questions
- Create Mental Images
- Comprehension Skills
- Identify Parts and Features of a Book to Predict and Confirm the Topic
- Identify the Main Topic and Retell Key Details
- Describe the Relationship Between the Illustrations and the Text
- Identify Similarities and Differences Between Two Texts on the Same Topic
- Vocabulary Strategy
- Ask and answer questions about unknown words in a text
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- air
- bloom
- den
- energy
- grow
- fertile soil
- oxygen
- shelter
- space
- sunlight
- survive
- water
- Writing Skills
- Draw, write, and share a message: Students “write” personal responses to stories the teacher reads aloud.
Unit 2: Every Story Has Characters
- Essential Question:
- How are characters different?
- Enduring Understandings:
- Being helpful and hard-working are two important character traits.
- We can appreciate other people more when we understand their perspectives
- Unit Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- appreciate
- perspective
- trait
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts (Teacher Read Aloud)
- Dog Days of School
- Horrible Bear
- “The Little Helper”
- “The Tortoise and the Hare”
- Shared Readings (We Read)
- “Gregory Griggs”
- “Humpty Dumpty”
- “Little Bo-Peep”
- “Little Miss Muffet”
- “The Gingerbread Man”
- “The Little Red Hen”
- Decodable Readings (Students Read)
- “Go!”
- “Nat”
- “Sam”
- We Sat
- We See
- Complex Anchor Texts (Teacher Read Aloud)
- Concepts About Print Skills
- Letter recognition
- Words are represented by letters
- Words are separated by spaces
- Capitalization
- Directionality: Read left to right
- Directionality: Return sweep
- Phonological Awareness Skills
- Phoneme Isolation
- Categorization
- Blend Onset and Rime
- Phonics Skills
- Primary Skills:
- s (initial)
- t (initial, final)
- n (initial, final)
- Spiral Review:
- m, short a
- Primary Skills:
- High Frequency Words
- Primary Words:
- the
- we
- go
- see
- Spiral Review
- I
- like
- Primary Words:
- Fluency Skill
- Expression
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Draw inferences
- Distinguish between important and unimportant information
- Comprehension Skills
- Identify and describe characters, setting, and major events
- Retell familiar stories using key details
- Compare and contrast the adventures and experiences of characters in stories
- Identify the author and illustrator and define the role of each
- Vocabulary Strategies
- Distinguish shades of meaning among verbs
- Ask and answer questions about unknown words in a text
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- cried
- curious
- explained
- indignant
- peeked
- roared
- scolded
- shivered
- shouted
- shrieked
- stomped
- whispered
- Writing Skills
- Draw and write narrative texts: Students “write” simple retellings of familiar stories
Unit 3: Rules at Home and School
- Essential Question:
- Why do we have rules?
- Enduring Understandings:
- We can stay safe by following rules at home, at school, and in the community.
- Rules help us act responsibly, get along with others, and make good choices
- Unit-Topic Specific Vocabulary
- get along
- respect
- responsible
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts (Teacher Read Aloud)
- “A New Pet”
- “Let’s Play by the Rules”
- Rules Are Cool
- What Are Some Rules at School
- Shared Readings (We Read)
- “Good Morning”
- “I Can”
- “I Wiggle”
- “Let’s Be Friends”
- “Rules at Home and School”
- “Stop, Look, and Listen”
- “Table Manners”
- Decodable Readings (Students Read)
- A Fat Pumpkin
- “Can We Fit?”
- In School
- “My Friend Sam”
- “Pam the Cat”
- Pat and Pam
- Complex Anchor Texts (Teacher Read Aloud)
- Concepts About Print Skills
- Words are represented by letters
- Words are separated by spaces
- Capitalization
- Directionality: Return sweep
- Phonological Awareness Skills
- Phoneme Isolation
- Substitution
- Syllables in spoken words
- Phonics Skills
- Primary Skills:
- short i (initial, medial)
- f (initial)
- p (initial, final)
- Spiral Review:
- n, t, s, m, short a
- Primary Skills:
- High Frequency Words
- Primary Words:
- can
- she
- is
- a
- Spiral Review
- go
- see
- the
- we
- Primary Words:
- Fluency Skills
- Pausing: Full stop
- Speed and pacing
- Expression
- Intonation and inflection
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Make connections
- Summarize and synthesize
- Comprehension Skills
- Identify the reasons an author gives to support points
- Identify and describe characters, setting, and major events
- Describe the relationship between the illustrations and the story
- Identify parts and features of a book (table of contents)
- Identify similarities and differences between two texts on the same topic
- Compare and contrast the adventures and experiences of characters in stories
- Vocabulary Strategy:
- Identify real-life connections between words and their use
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- be nice
- citizens
- community
- enormous
- helping hand
- important
- joined
- pay attention
- respect
- responsible
- rules
- safe
- Writing Skills
- Prompt Writing Skills:
- Draw and write an Informational text: The student will “write” facts to share information they learned from a nonfiction text read aloud by the teacher.
- Grammar Skills:
- Capitalization (i.e., beginning of sentence)
- Use complete sentences
- Prompt Writing Skills:
Unit 4: Writers Tell Many Stories
- Essential Question:
- Why do people Tell Stories
- Enduring Understandings:
- Characters and their adventures and experiences can entertain and teach us.
- Stories can show how families and friends care for one another.
- Unit-Topic Specific Vocabulary
- character
- experiences
- family
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts (Teacher Read Aloud)
- “Who Did It?”
- “The Spider and the Deer”
- Knuffle Bunny
- Wolf Club’s Song
- Shared Readings (We Read)
- “I Have Something in My Pocket”
- “A Sailor Went to Sea”
- “Catch a Little Rhyme”
- “Itsy, Bitsy, Spider”
- “What the Animals Say”
- “Stone Soup”
- “The Three Billy Goats Gruff”
- Decodable Readings (Students Read)
- “The Boy”
- It Can Pop
- “Little Cat”
- Cam the Cat
- “Hop, Hop, Hop”
- It Is Hot!
- Complex Anchor Texts (Teacher Read Aloud)
- Concepts About Print Skills
- Directionality: Return sweep
- Written Words Match Spoken Words
- Capitalization
- Phonological Awareness Skills
- Phoneme Isolation
- Blending
- Blend onset and rime
- Phonics Skills
- Primary Skills:
- short o (initial, medial)
- c (initial)
- h (initial)
- Spiral Review:
- p, f, n, t, s, m, short a, short i
- Primary Skills:
- High Frequency Words
- Primary Words:
- he
- has
- little
- play
- Spiral Review
- a
- is
- she
- Primary Words:
- Fluency Skills
- Rhythm
- Phrasing
- Expression
- Intonation and inflection
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Ask and answer questions
- Create mental images
- Comprehension Skills
- Identify and describe characters, setting, and major events
- Describe the relationship between the illustrations and the story
- Compare and contrast the adventures and experiences of characters in stories
- Vocabulary Strategies
- Identify new meanings for familiar words
- Identify real-life connections between words and their use
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- General Academic Vocabulary
- crash
- spotted
- directed
- spun
- bawled
- realized
- replied
- zoomed
- guided
- leaped
- Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- cub
- wolf pack
- General Academic Vocabulary
- Writing Skills
- Prompt Writing Skills:
- Draw and write opinion texts: Students will write an opinion about a story read aloud by the teacher.
- Grammar Skills:
- Capitalization (i.e., beginning of sentence)
- End punctuation (i.e., period)
- Use complete sentences
- Prompt Writing Skills:
Unit 5: Technology at Home and School
- Essential Question:
- Why do we use technology?
- Enduring Understandings:
- Technology is changing how we work, learn, travel, and live.
- We can use technology to interact with others in new ways.
- Unit-Topic Specific Vocabulary
- computer
- interact
- technology
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts (Teacher Read Aloud)
- “Up, Up, and Away”
- “1, 2, 3, Blast Off!”
- Technology at Home and School: Past and Present
- The No-Tech Day of Play
- Shared Readings (We Read)
- “A Little Piggy Named Bob!”
- “Technology at School”
- “Deep in Our Refrigerator”
- “The Wheels on the Bus”
- “Getting to School”
- “The Toaster”
- “My Noisy House”
- Decodable Readings (Students Read)
- “Play Ball”
- Bob Can Go
- “The Fun Bus”
- What Is It?
- “Ron Has a Robot”
- Rob at School
- Complex Anchor Texts (Teacher Read Aloud)
- Concepts About Print Skills
- Written Words Match Spoken Words
- Sentences represented by words
- Word represented by letters
- Page sequence
- Directionality: read left to right
- End marks
- Phonological Awareness Skills
- Phoneme Isolation
- Addition
- Distinguish syllables in spoken words
- Phonics Skills
- Primary Skills:
- b (initial, final)
- short u (initial, medial)
- r (initial)
- Spiral Review:
- h, c, p, f, n, t, s, short i, short o
- Word Families:
- -at
- -un
- -ip
- Primary Skills:
- High Frequency Words
- Primary Words:
- and
- you
- big
- with
- Spiral Review
- has
- he
- little
- play
- Primary Words:
- Fluency Skills
- Characterization/Feelings
- Pacing
- Inflection
- Self-correct
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Draw inferences
- Distinguish between important and unimportant information
- Comprehension Skills
- Identify the reasons an author gives to support points
- Identify the parts and features of a book (illustrations, captions)
- Identify and describe characters, setting, and major events
- Describe the relationship between the illustrations and the text
- Identify similarities and differences between two texts on the same topic
- Compare and contrast the adventures and experiences of characters in stories
- Vocabulary Strategies
- Identify new meanings for familiar words
- Sort words into categories
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- General Academic Vocabulary
- future
- appeared
- vanished
- changed
- improved
- long ago
- charge
- games
- plug in
- text
- Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- outer space
- electricity
- General Academic Vocabulary
- Writing Skills
- Process Writing:
- Write an informational text about technology using facts learned from texts from this unit.
- Grammar:
- Capitalization (i.e., beginning of sentence, I)
- End punctuation (i.e., period)
- Use complete sentences
- Process Writing:
Unit 6: Stories Have a Message
- Essential Question:
- How do we know what is right?
- Enduring Understandings:
- People tell traditional stories, like folktales, to teach important lessons.
- Stories can teach us that ordinary people can accomplish big things, especially when they work together
- Unit-Topic Specific Vocabulary
- accomplish
- lesson
- message
- work together
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts (Teacher Read Aloud)
- “All Together Now”
- “A House for Max”
- The Legend of the Coqui
- The Boy Who Fed His People
- Shared Readings (We Read)
- “Goldilocks Learns a Lesson”
- “Fox and Crow”
- “Sharing”
- “Good, Better, Best”
- “Live Happily Ever After”
- “Chicken Little”
- “Do What’s Right”
- Decodable Readings (Students Read)
- “The Red Hen”
- Red Hens
- “Good Pig, Bad Pig”
- Meg Likes Bugs
- “Dan’s Dog”
- Where Is Dan?
- Complex Anchor Texts (Teacher Read Aloud)
- Concepts About Print Skills
- Directionality: return sweep
- Directionality: read top to bottom
- Distinguish letters from words
- Print conveys meaning and pictures support meaning
- Phonological Awareness Skills
- Phoneme Isolation
- Blending, including onset and rime
- Substitution
- Phonics Skills
- Primary Skills:
- short e (initial, medial)
- g (initial, final)
- d (initial, final)
- Spiral Review:
- r, b, h, c, p, f, n, short i, short o, short u
- Word Families:
- -et
- -ot
- -an
- Primary Skills:
- High Frequency Words
- Primary Words:
- for
- no
- jump
- one
- Spiral Review
- and
- you
- big
- with
- Primary Words:
- Fluency Skills
- Inflection/Intonation
- Pacing
- Expression
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Make connections
- Summarize and synthesize
- Comprehension Skills
- Describer main characters, setting, and important events in a story
- Compare and contrast characters’ experiences
- Retell: Use main characters, setting, and important events
- Identify and explain descriptive words in a text
- Identify rhyme in a poem
- Vocabulary Strategies
- Relate words to their opposites
- Ask and answer questions about unfamiliar words
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- General Academic Vocabulary
- idea
- looming
- grinned
- planned
- ignored
- notice
- practiced
- represent
- brave
- Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- game
- snares
- tipi
- General Academic Vocabulary
- Writing Skills
- Process Writing:
- Write an opinion text about characters in a story read during this unit.
- Grammar:
- Capitalization (i.e., beginning of sentence, I)
- End punctuation (i.e., period, question mark)
- Use complete sentences
- Process Writing:
Unit 7: Holidays and Celebrations
- Essential Question:
- Why do we celebrate people and events?
- Enduring Understandings:
- We honor people who made positive contributions to the world with celebrations and holidays.
- We celebrate holidays with food, parades, and/or being with friends and family.
- Unit-Topic Specific Vocabulary
- celebration
- holiday
- honor
- remember
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts (Teacher Read Aloud)
- “The Mother of Thanksgiving”
- “Let’s Celebrate Thomas Edison”
- People We Celebrate
- In My Opinion. . . These Are the Best Ways to Celebrate Holidays
- Shared Readings (We Read)
- “Mr. Turkey”
- “Five Waiting Pumpkins”
- “November Is Upon Us”
- “P-E-A-C-E”
- “February Celebration!”
- “Happy Birthday U.S.A!”
- “June Is the Best Month”
- Decodable Readings (Students Read)
- “Summer Fun”
- We Have Fun
- “What Is It?”
- Lin Can See
- “I Am Happy!”
- Jim and Jane Have Fun
- Complex Anchor Texts (Teacher Read Aloud)
- Concepts About Print Skills
- End Punctuation
- Directionality: return sweep
- Words are separated by spaces
- Directionality: read top to bottom
- Phonological Awareness Skills
- Phoneme Isolation
- Blending
- Substitution
- Distinguish syllables
- Delete syllables in compound words
- Phonics Skills
- Primary Skills:
- w (initial)
- l (initial)
- j (initial)
- Spiral Review:
- d, g, r, b, h, c, p, short o, short u, short e
- Word Families:
- -in
- -op
- -ug
- Primary Skills:
- High Frequency Words
- Primary Words:
- are
- have
- said
- two
- Spiral Review
- for
- jump
- no
- one
- said
- Primary Words:
- Fluency Skills
- Confirm word recognition
- Inflection, intonation, and volume
- Rate and pacing
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Apply previously taught strategies
- Comprehension Skills
- Identify main topic and retell key details
- Describe connection between two individuals, events, ideas, or information in a text
- Identify book parts and features (i.e., captions, illustrations, table of contents)
- Describe the relationship between the illustrations and the text
- Identify the reasons an author gives to support points
- Identify similarities and differences between two texts on the same topic
- Vocabulary Strategies
- Relate words to their opposites
- Use inflections and affixes as a clue to the meaning of unknown words
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- General Academic Vocabulary
- celebrate
- valued
- solve problems
- honor
- remember
- Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- inventor
- civil rights
- laws
- leader
- patriotic
- serve the country
- thankful
- General Academic Vocabulary
- Writing Skills
- Process Writing:
- Write a personal narrative about a holiday or celebration.
- Grammar:
- Capitalization (i.e., beginning of sentence, I)
- End punctuation (i.e., period, question mark)
- Use complete sentences
- Process Writing:
Unit 8: Weather and Seasons
- Essential Question:
- How do our lives change with the seasons?
- Enduring Understandings:
- Weather and temperatures change with the seasons.
- The clothes we wear and the things we do are affected by the weather and seasons
- Unit-Topic Specific Vocabulary
- change
- season
- temperature
- weather
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts (Teacher Read Aloud)
- “The Coolest Vacation”
- “The Great Blizzard”
- Weather and the Seasons
- Two Wool Gloves
- Shared Readings (We Read)
- “The Weather Song”
- “Caps, Mittens, Shoes, and Socks”
- “Snow City”
- “Fall”
- “Spring is Coming”
- “Hide-and-Seek in Fall”
- “Rain, Rain, Stay a Day”
- Decodable Readings (Students Read)
- “Kim’s Day”
- Kids Have Fun
- “Yip-Yap”
- Mom and the Cubs
- “Come Quick!”
- Val and Vic
- Complex Anchor Texts (Teacher Read Aloud)
- Concepts About Print Skills
- Words are made of letters
- End Punctuation
- Recognize sequential order of pages
- Phonological Awareness Skills
- Phoneme Isolation
- Addition
- Blending, including onset and rime
- Phonics Skills
- Primary Skills:
- k (initial)
- y (initial)
- v (initial)
- qu (initial)
- Spiral Review:
- j, l, w, d, g, r, b, short o, short u, short e
- Word Families:
- -it
- -ap
- -ick
- Primary Skills:
- High Frequency Words
- Primary Words:
- look
- me
- come
- here
- Spiral Review
- are
- have
- me
- said
- two
- Primary Words:
- Fluency Skills
- Pitch
- Self-monitor of accuracy
- Pause at periods
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Apply previously taught strategies
- Comprehension Skills
- Identify main topic and retell key details
- Identify and describe story characters, setting, and major events
- Describe the relationship between the illustrations and the text
- Identify similarities and differences between two texts on the same topic
- Identify book parts and features (i.e., captions, illustrations)
- Retell familiar stories including key details
- Compare and contrast the adventures and experiences of characters
- Vocabulary Strategy
- Distinguish shades of meaning among verbs
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- General Academic Vocabulary
- cool (colloquial)
- blanketed
- fewest
- ruin
- grumbled
- shield oneself
- squeaked
- Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- cool (scientific)
- melt
- blizzard
- temperatures
- thunderstorms
- snowstorm
- General Academic Vocabulary
- Writing Skills
- Process Writing:
- Write a simple research report by writing facts learned about texts read aloud during the unit.
- Grammar:
- Capitalization (i.e., beginning of sentence, I)
- End punctuation (i.e., period, question mark)
- Use complete sentences
- Process Writing:
Unit 9: Meeting Our Wants and Needs
- Essential Question:
- Why do we make choices?
- Enduring Understandings:
- People work to earn and save money to pay for things they need and want.
- People make choices about what to buy to meet their needs and wants.
- Unit-Topic Specific Vocabulary
- choice
- money
- need
- want
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts (Teacher Read Aloud)
- “Firefighters and Work”
- “A Gift for Mom”
- Needs and Wants
- Jaylen’s Juice Box
- Shared Readings (We Read)
- “My Choices”
- “Three Jars”
- “Covers”
- “Tiny Tim”
- “Meeting Needs in a Different Way”
- “What Do I Want”
- “Choose Happiness”
- Decodable Readings (Students Read)
- “The Two Boxes”
- Mr. Max’s Job
- “What Am I?”
- At Work
- “Vote!”
- Mr. and Mrs. Mole
- Complex Anchor Texts (Teacher Read Aloud)
- Concepts About Print Skills
- Words are made of letters
- Directionality: return sweep
- Relationship between spoken words and written words
- Phonological Awareness Skills
- Phoneme Isolation
- Blending
- Addition
- Substitution
- Deletion
- Phonics Skills
- Primary Skills:
- x (final)
- z (initial)
- long a (a_e)
- long o (o_e)
- Spiral Review:
- v, qu, y, k, j, l, w, short o, short u, short e
- Word Families:
- -ock
- -ame
- -ope
- Primary Skills:
- High Frequency Words
- Primary Words:
- my
- to
- of
- what
- Spiral Review
- come
- here
- look
- me
- Primary Words:
- Fluency Skills
- Accuracy
- Intonation and inflection
- Expression
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Apply previously taught strategies
- Comprehension Skills
- Identify and describe story characters, setting, and major events
- Describe the relationship between the illustrations and the text
- Identify the reasons an author gives to support points
- Identify book parts and features (i.e., captions, illustrations, labels)
- Identify main topic and retell key details
- Compare and contrast the adventures and experiences of characters
- Vocabulary Strategy
- Sort words into categories
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- General Academic Vocabulary
- resourceful
- Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- gear
- shift
- earn
- afford
- price
- purchase
- save
- change
- customers
- business
- orders
- General Academic Vocabulary
- Writing Skills
- Process Writing:
- Write an opinion and a supporting reason(s) about a familiar topic.
- Grammar:
- Capitalization (i.e., beginning of sentence, I)
- End punctuation (i.e., period, question mark)
- Use complete sentences
- Process Writing:
Unit 10: Forces and Motion
- Essential Question:
- What makes things move?
- Enduring Understandings:
- Objects are in motion all around us.
- We use forces and motion to help us in our daily lives.
- Unit-Topic Specific Vocabulary
- force
- motion
- pull
- push
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts (Teacher Read Aloud)
- “The True Story of Balto, the Sled Dog”
- “Up in the Air”
- Forces
- Motion
- Shared Readings (We Read)
- “The Elephant Goes”
- “Stretching Fun”
- “The Swing”
- “Count and Move”
- “Yoga for Kids”
- “The Three Little Pigs Go Out to Play”
- “The Thirsty Bird Gets a Drink”
- Decodable Readings (Students Read)
- “Do You Want?”
- It Is Time to Tug
- “I Saw This Box”
- Ned Makes a Home
- “Pete and Eve”
- It Can Go Up!
- Complex Anchor Texts (Teacher Read Aloud)
- Concepts About Print Skills
- Words are made of letters
- End Punctuation
- Relationship between spoken words and written words
- Directionality: return sweep
- Follow pages in a sequential order
- Phonological Awareness Skills
- Phoneme Isolation
- Addition
- Substitution
- Blending
- Deletion
- Phonics Skills
- Primary Skills:
- long i (i_e)
- long u (u_e)
- long e (e_e)
- Spiral Review:
- X, Z, v, qu, y, k, j, long a (a_e), long o (o_e)
- Word Families:
- -ide
- Primary Skills:
- High Frequency Words
- Primary Words:
- put
- want
- saw
- this
- Spiral Review
- my
- of
- to
- what
- Primary Words:
- Fluency Skills
- Stress
- Pacing
- Expression
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Apply previously taught strategies
- Comprehension Skills
- Describe the relationship between the illustrations and the text
- Identify similarities and differences between two texts on the same topic
- Describe the connection between two individuals, events, ideas, or pieces of information in a text
- Identify the reasons an author gives to support points
- Identify book parts and features (i.e., captions, illustrations, labels)
- Vocabulary Strategies
- Relate words to their opposites
- Identify real-life connections between words and their use
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- General Academic Vocabulary
- n/a
- General Academic Vocabulary
- Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- dogsled
- relay
- rise
- sink
- friction
- gravity
- machines
- opposite
- direction
- path
- position
- speed
- Writing Skills
- Process Writing:
- Write poems about familiar topics.
- Grammar:
- Capitalization (i.e., beginning of sentence, I)
- End punctuation (i.e., period, question mark)
- Use complete sentences
- Process Writing:
Grade 1
Click the + to expand.
- Unit 1: Plants and Animals Grow and Change
- Unit 2: Many Kinds of Characters
- Unit 3: Be a Good Community Member
- Unit 4: Stories Have a Narrator
- Unit 5: Technology at Work
- Unit 6: Stories Teach Lessons
- Unit 7: Past, Present, and Future
- Unit 8: Observing the Sky
- Unit 9: We Use Goods and Services
- Unit 10: Exploring Sound, Light, and Heat
Unit 1: Plants and Animals Grow and Change
Key Learning(s)
- Essential Question:
- Why do living things change?
- Enduring Understandings:
- Every living thing has a life cycle in which it grows and changes.
- Many stories include animal characters that grow and change.
- Unit Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- change
- grow
- life cycle
- living things
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts (Teacher Read Aloud)
- “The Amazing Life Cycle of a Frog”
- “The Fox and the Robin”
- An Oak Tree Has a Life Cycle
- The Ugly Duckling
- Shared Readings (We Read)
- “Five Little Tadpoles”
- “Someday”
- “Caterpillars”
- “Baby Animals”
- “Grow, Ducklings, Grow”
- “My Garden”
- “The Seed”
- Decodable Readings (Students Read)
- “At the Pond”
- Pals Help
- We Like to Bat
- “A Cub Grows”
- Get a Big Pot
- A Cub is Fun
- “Let’s Grow Seeds”
- Crops for Us
- A Frog Can Jump
- Complex Anchor Texts (Teacher Read Aloud)
- Concepts About Print Skills
- Match spoken word to written word
- Directionality: Return sweep
- Punctuation: periods, exclamation points, question marks
- Text Features: Italics
- Phonological Awareness Skills
- Recognize and produce rhyming words
- Phoneme blending
- Phoneme segmentation
- Phoneme categorization
- Phonics Skills
- Primary Skills:
- short a
- short i
- short o
- Secondary Skills:
- s /z/
- -ck /k/
- plural nouns (-s)
- final double consonants (-ff, -ss, -ll, -zz)
- Word Families:
- -at, -ad, -an
- -in, -it, -ip
- -op, -og, -ot
- Spiral Review:
- Consonant sounds
- Primary Skills:
- High Frequency Words
- the
- see
- go
- she
- and
- play
- little
- you
- with
- for
- no
- jump
- one
- have
- Fluency Skills
- Phrasing
- Intonation
- Expression
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Ask and answer questions
- Create mental images
- Clarify or confirm and understanding
- Comprehension Skills
- Identify the main topic and retell key details
- Describe the connection between two individuals, events, ideas, or pieces of information
- Retell key story details
- Identify the similarities and differences between two texts on the same topic
- Describe major story events using key details
- Compare and contrast the adventures and experiences of characters
- Vocabulary Strategies
- Identify real-life connections between words and their use
- Sort words into categories to demonstrate understanding
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- General Academic Vocabulary
- clever
- sneaky
- chirped
- flapping
- pecked
- ruffled
- Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- gills
- hatches
- cub
- tadpole
- roots
- sapling
- stems
- trunk
- General Academic Vocabulary
- Writing Skills
- Prompt Writing Skills:
- Write personal responses: Students write personal responses to the anchor texts read aloud by the teacher
- Grammar Skills:
- Common and proper nouns
- Verbs to convey past, present, and future
- Prompt Writing Skills:
Unit 2: Many Kinds of Characters
Key Learning(s)
- Essential Question:
- How do we learn about characters?
- Enduring Understandings:
- Stories of all kinds, including fairy tales, fables, fantasies, and realistic fiction, have characters who face challenges.
- Stories can teach us that families and communities work best when people make responsible choices and help one another.
- Unit Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- challenge
- solution
- choices
- lesson
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts (Teacher Read Aloud)
- “The Ant and the Grasshopper”
- “Little Red Riding Hood”
- Wolfie the Bunny
- Abuelita’s Secret
- Shared Readings (We Read)
- “Look in a Book”
- “Old Mother Hubbard”
- “By Myself”
- “Three Little Kittens”
- “The Turtle and the Hare”
- “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”
- “The Elves and the Shoemaker”
- Decodable Readings (Students Read)
- “Little Red”
- When Red Hen Fell
- Red and the Vet
- “Come Here, Friend”
- Big Bus Gets Stuck
- Bud, Gus, and Dot
- “What Is It? Riddles”
- Let’s Sled
- Glenn the Robot
- Complex Anchor Texts (Teacher Read Aloud)
- Concepts About Print Skills
- Punctuation: periods, exclamation points, question marks, quotation marks
- Uppercase letters
- Phonological Awareness Skills
- Recognize and produce rhyming words
- Phoneme blending
- Phoneme segmentation
- Phoneme categorization
- Phonics Skills
- Primary Skills:
- short e
- short u
- l-blends
- Secondary Skills:
- Inflectional ending (-s)
- Word Families:
- -ug, -up, -un
- -ob, -ot, -ock
- Spiral Review:
- Short a, short i, short o, double final consonants
- Primary Skills:
- High Frequency Words
- are
- said
- two
- look
- my
- come
- here
- to
- of
- what
- put
- want
- this
- saw
- Fluency Skills
- Phrasing
- Expression
- Self-Correcting
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Draw inferences
- Determine importance
- Use pictures to help understand the meaning of a text
- Comprehension Skills
- Describe characters, settings, and major events in a story
- Use illustrations and details to describe characters, setting, or events
- Compare and contrast the adventures and experiences of characters
- Vocabulary Strategy
- Describe shades of meaning among verbs
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- General Academic Vocabulary
- industrious
- idle
- lively
- wicked
- whispered
- screamed
- demanded
- insisted
- suggested
- secret
- explained
- General Academic Vocabulary
- Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- n/a
- Writing Skills
- Prompt Writing Skills:
- Write stories: Students write a new version of or an extended ending to a familiar story.
- Grammar Skills:
- Singular and plural nouns
- Articles
- Question type: statement
- Prompt Writing Skills:
Unit 3: Be a Good Community Member
Key Learning(s)
- Essential Question:
- Why do people get involved in their communities?
- Enduring Understandings:
- When people exhibit good citizenship, communities become safer and more enjoyable.
- Responsible citizens follow laws and principles that include respect for the rights, opinions, and property of others.
- Unit Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- safe
- citizen
- responsible
- community
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts (Teacher Read Aloud)
- “Hello, Community Garden”
- “Safe to Go!”
- Being a Responsible Citizen
- People Who Made Contributions
- Shared Readings (We Read)
- “In the Neighborhood”
- “Neighbors, Neighbors”
- “We Have a Garden”
- “Can You Keep Earth Clean?”
- “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle”
- “Firefighters”
- “Firefighters to the Rescue”
- Decodable Readings (Students Read)
- “Bag and Grab It!”
- Mr. Drake’s Plan
- Make It Safe
- “Time Can Clean”
- Stop for Socks
- Kids Can Fix It
- “One Fast Wagon”
- Grant’s Coat
- Let’s Clean It Up
- Complex Anchor Texts (Teacher Read Aloud)
- Concepts About Print Skills
- Punctuation: periods, exclamation points, question marks
- Uppercase letters
- Phonological Awareness Skills
- Phoneme categorization
- Phoneme blending
- Phoneme segmentation
- Recognize and produce rhyming words
- Phonics Skills
- Primary Skills:
- r-blends
- s-blends
- final consonant blends
- Secondary Skills:
- Contractions (‘s)
- Inflectional endings (-ed with no spelling change)
- Word Families:
- -im, -ill, -ick
- -ap, -am, -ag
- Spiral Review:
- l-blends, short vowels
- Primary Skills:
- High Frequency Words
- now
- do
- which
- went
- was
- there
- then
- out
- who
- good
- by
- them
- Fluency Skills
- Pitch and intonation
- Self-Correcting
- Pausing
- Features of a Sentence
- Expression
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Make connections
- Summarize and synthesize
- Read more slowly and think about words
- Comprehension Skills
- Ask and answer questions about relevant details using photographs
- Find text evidence: Identify relevant details
- Use text features to locate key facts (i.e., table of contents)
- Identify the reasons an author gives to support points
- Vocabulary Strategy
- Identify and use context clues
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- General Academic Vocabulary
- honest
- respect
- decision
- contribution
- Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- plot
- vacant
- inventor
- signal
- citizen
- enslaved
- abolitionist
- rights
- General Academic Vocabulary
- Writing Skills
- Process Writing Skills:
- Write Informational Text: Students use facts and details from the anchor read aloud texts to brainstorm, draft, and revise their on informational text
- Grammar Skills:
- Noun-Verb agreement with singular and plural nouns/pronouns
- Personal and possessive pronouns
- Indefinite pronouns
- Process Writing Skills:
Unit 4: Stories Have a Narrator
Key Learning(s)
- Essential Question:
- How do people create stories?
- Enduring Understandings:
- Realistic stories tell about characters, settings, and events that could exist. Fantasy stories include elements that could not happen in real life.
- Reading stories from different points of view allows us to learn about other people’s perspectives.
- Unit Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- realistic
- fantasy
- perspective
- experience
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts (Teacher Read Aloud)
- “The City Mouse and the Country Mouse”
- “The Quiet Camping Trip”
- Mother Bruce
- The Lost Kitten
- Shared Readings (We Read)
- “Fairy Tale Song”
- “Lavender’s Blue”
- “Old King Cole”
- “Once I Saw a Little Bird”
- “Over in the Meadow”
- “The Fox and the Hen”
- “The Secret”
- Decodable Readings (Students Read)
- “The King’s Wish”
- I Wish, I Wish
- Trish’s Birthday
- “I Saw It”
- Chad and Patch
- A Picnic Lunch
- “One Spring Day”
- Splat and Sprat
- Splash at the Pond
- Complex Anchor Texts (Teacher Read Aloud)
- Concepts About Print Skills
- Punctuation: periods, exclamation points, question marks, commas, dashes, quotation marks
- Uppercase letters
- Phonological Awareness Skills
- Phoneme identification
- Phoneme blending
- Phoneme substitution
- Phoneme categorization
- Phoneme addition
- Recognize and produce rhyming words
- Phonics Skills
- Primary Skills:
- consonant digraphs (i.e., th, sh, -ng, ch, -tch, wh)
- three-letter blends (i.e., spl, spr, squ, str)
- Secondary Skills:
- Inflectional endings (-ing with no spelling change)
- Closed syllables
- Plurals (-es)
- Word Families:
- -ung, -ing, -ink
- -unk, -ump, -uck
- -ash, -ack
- Spiral Review:
- Initial consonant blends, final consonant blends, inflectional ending (-ed)
- Primary Skills:
- High Frequency Words
- were
- our
- could
- these
- once
- upon
- hurt
- that
- because
- from
- their
- when
- Fluency Skills
- Self-Correcting
- Pausing
- Expression
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Ask questions
- Create mental images
- Read out loud to support comprehension
- Comprehension Skills
- Identify who is telling the story
- Describe characters, settings, and major events using key details
- Identify words and phrase that appeal to the senses
- Ask and answer questions about key details
- Vocabulary Strategies
- Identify root words and their inflectional forms
- Define words by category and key attributes
- Identify and use context clues
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- General Academic Vocabulary
- boring
- peaceful
- lumbered
- peered
- stern
- pesky
- grumpy
- exclaimed
- gobbled
- claimed
- Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- migrated
- saffron
- General Academic Vocabulary
- Writing Skills
- Process Writing Skills:
- Write Opinion Text: Students plan, write, and revise opinions about the anchor read-aloud texts
- Grammar Skills:
- Adjectives
- Commas (in dates, to separate words in a series)
- Process Writing Skills:
Unit 5: Technology at Work
Key Learning(s)
- Essential Question:
- How can technology make a difference in our lives?
- Enduring Understandings:
- The use technology can help people work more quickly and efficiently.
- People create technology to solve problems and improve the way people live and do work.
- Unit Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- robots
- computer
- technology
- equipment
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts (Teacher Read Aloud)
- “Robots at Work”
- “What a Great Idea!”
- Working with Technology
- Technology Breakdown
- Complex Anchor Texts (Teacher Read Aloud)
- Shared Readings (We Read)
- “Go, Robots, Go!”
- “Robots: Big and Small”
- “The Drinking Fountain”
- “We’re Going to the Moon”
- “The Moon”
- “I Wonder”
- “Picture This
- Decodable Readings (Students Read)
- “Make a Robot”
- At the Lake
- Blake and Shane Play
- “You Can Find It”
- Around the Globe
- All Kinds of Holes
- “Dear Family”
- Mole City
- We Live in Space
- “Go, Robots, Go!”
- Concepts About Print Skills
- Punctuation: periods, exclamation points, question marks, commas
- Directionality: Return sweep
- Uppercase letters
- Phonological Awareness Skills
- Phoneme categorization
- Phoneme blending
- Phoneme substitution
- Phonics Skills
- Primary Skills:
- long a (a_e)
- long o (o_e)
- Soft c and g
- three-letter blends (i.e., spl, spr, squ, str)
- Secondary Skills:
- Contractions (n’t)
- Word Families:
- -ame, -ake
- -ope, -ape
- -ace, -age
- Spiral Review:
- three-letter blends, consonant digraphs, closed syllables, plurals (-es)
- Primary Skills:
- High Frequency Words
- why
- many
- right
- start
- find
- how
- over
- under
- try
- give
- far
- too
- Fluency Skills
- Pausing
- Expression
- Rate
- Mood
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Draw inferences
- Determine importance
- Stop and think about the author’s purpose
- Comprehension Skills
- Use illustrations and details to describe key ideas
- Describe characters, settings, and major events using key details
- Identify main topic and retell key details
- Know and use text features to locate key facts or information
- Describe the connection between two individuals, event, ideas, or pieces of information in a text
- Vocabulary Strategies
- Sort words into categories
- Distinguish shades of meaning among verbs
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- General Academic Vocabulary
- high-tech
- on the blink
- capacity
- blurry
- Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- machines
- programmed
- computer
- programmer
- invention
- communicate
- solve problems
- cure
- career
- General Academic Vocabulary
- Writing Skills
- Process Writing Skills:
- Write Informative Text: Students study a mentor text and use it and other sources to write about a self-selected technology topic.
- Grammar Skills:
- Sentence Types: statement, question, exclamation
- Prepositions
- Process Writing Skills:
Unit 6: Stories Teach Lessons
Key Learning(s)
- Essential Question:
- What can we learn from a mistake?
- Enduring Understandings:
- Stories, such as fables, folktales, and realistic fiction, can teach the reader a moral or lesson.
- Teamwork can help people solve problems that they may not have been able to solve on their own.
- Unit Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- problem
- teamwork
- moral
- cooperation
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts (Teacher Read Aloud)
- “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”
- “The Ant and the Pigeon”
- When Turtle Grew Feathers
- Tall and Small Play Ball
- Shared Readings (We Read)
- “Lunch”
- “No Tiger Hunt Today”
- “Friend”
- “When I Hurry”
- “The Ant and the Grasshopper”
- “Five Brown Bears”
- “Stories That Teach Lessons”
- Decodable Readings (Students Read)
- “Mike Can Fix It”
- Five Kittens
- Fox Jumps
- “Steve’s House”
- A Hat for Pete
- Zeke’s Garden
- “Which Train?”
- Painting in May
- Gail and Gram
- Complex Anchor Texts (Teacher Read Aloud)
- Concepts About Print Skills
- Punctuation: periods, exclamation points, question marks, commas, dashes, colons, quotation marks
- Uppercase letters
- Directionality: Return sweep
- Phonological Awareness Skills
- Phoneme categorization
- Phoneme blending
- Phoneme substitution
- Phonics Skills
- Primary Skills:
- long i (i_e)
- long e (e_e)
- long u (u_e)
- Long a (a, ai, ay)
- Secondary Skills:
- VCe syllables
- inflectional endings (-ed & -ing)
- Word Families:
- -ine, -ite, -ide
- -ale, -ane, -une
- -ail, -ain, -ay
- Spiral Review:
- soft c, soft g, contractions (n’t), long a (a_e), long o (o_e)
- Primary Skills:
- High Frequency Words
- after
- call
- large
- her
- house
- long
- off
- small
- brown
- work
- year
- live
- Fluency Skills
- Self-Correcting
- Pausing
- Rate
- Phrasing
- Expression
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Make connections
- Summarize and synthesize
- Confirm or correct word recognition and understanding
- Comprehension Skills
- Describe characters, settings, and major events using key details
- Understand the central message
- Compare and contrast the adventure and experiences of characters
- Vocabulary Strategies
- Use context as a clue of word meaning
- Use affixes as a clue of word meaning
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- General Academic Vocabulary
- angry
- furious
- blame
- fault
- shattered
- truce
- tease
- block
- height
- dribbled
- Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- weary
- grateful
- moral
- General Academic Vocabulary
- Writing Skills
- Process Writing Skills:
- Write Opinion Text: Students self-select characters and books from Unit 1 – 5 and write opinions using reasons and evidence from the books.
- Grammar Skills:
- Use frequently occurring conjunctions
- Produce simple and compound sentences
- Process Writing Skills:
Unit 7: Past, Present, and Future
Key Learning(s)
- Essential Question:
- Why is the past important?
- Enduring Understandings:
- Knowledge of the past is important to understand the present and plan for the future.
- People use tools, such as time lines and maps, to help organize and understand events of the past.
- Unit Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- future
- past
- present
- events
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts (Teacher Read Aloud)
- “School Days”
- “The Story of the White House”
- Using Time Lines
- Statues and Monuments
- Shared Readings (We Read)
- “Lets Go, Go, Go!”
- “Long Ago on the Go”
- “Now We Are Six”
- “Playing Games”
- “Sounds of a School Day Long Ago”
- “Hooray for Heroes”
- “Who Was Harriet Tubman?”
- Decodable Readings (Students Read)
- “From Place to Place”
- How We Go
- Toad’s Big Boat
- “Fun and Games”
- Bees, Bees, Bees!
- Lee, Dee, and Zees
- “Our Flag”
- Way Up High
- Bright Lights
- Complex Anchor Texts (Teacher Read Aloud)
- Concepts About Print Skills
- Literary Element: Onomatopoeia and sound words
- Punctuation: periods, exclamation points, question marks, dashes, ellipses, hyphens
- Text Feature: Italics
- Phonological Awareness Skills
- Phoneme Isolation
- Add syllables in compound words
- Substitute syllables in compound word
- Phonics Skills
- Primary Skills:
- Long o (o, oa, ow, oe)
- Long e (e, ee, ea, ie)
- Long i (i, y, igh)
- Secondary Skills:
- Prefixes: un-, re-
- Open syllables
- Word Families:
- -ow, oat, old
- -eat, -eet, -eed
- -ight, -ice, -ile
- Spiral Review:
- Long a vowel teams, long VCe syllables
- Primary Skills:
- High Frequency Words
- found
- your
- know
- always
- all
- people
- where
- draw
- again
- round
- they
- country
- Fluency Skills
- Rate
- Self-Correcting
- Accuracy
- Pausing
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Apply previously taught metacognitive strategies.
- Apply previously taught fix-up strategies.
- Comprehension Skills
- Identify main topic and retell key details
- Use text features to locate information (i.e., captions, glossaries, time lines)
- Distinguish between information in pictures and text
- Describe the connection between two individuals, events, ideas, or pieces of information in a text
- Vocabulary Strategy
- Use context clues to determine or clarify the meaning of a word or phrase
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- General Academic Vocabulary
- discover
- modern
- improvements
- event
- happened
- honor
- Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- passed down
- factories
- structures
- protests
- pioneers
- General Academic Vocabulary
- Writing Skills
- Process Writing Skills:
- Write How -To (Procedural) Text: Students study a mentor text and plan, draft, revise, and edit their own how-to text.
- Grammar Skills:
- Possessive nouns
- Noun-Verb agreement with singular and plural nouns
- Process Writing Skills:
Unit 8: Observing the Sky
Key Learning(s)
- Essential Question:
- Why do the sun and moon capture our imagination?
- Enduring Understandings:
- By observing and exploring, we develop knowledge about Earth, the sun, the moon, and the stars.
- In many cultures, people tell stories to explain what they observe in the night sky.
- Unit Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- observe
- explore
- sky
- planet
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts (Teacher Read Aloud)
- “Why Sun and Moon Live in the Sky”
- “A Walk on the Moon”
- Night and Day
- Night Sky
- Shared Readings (We Read)
- “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”
- “Stars in the Night Sky”
- “The Moon’s The North Wind’s Cookie”
- “Zoom, Zoom, Zoom”
- “An Astronaut’s Space Suit”
- “April Clouds”
- “Tears from the Silver River”
- Decodable Readings (Students Read)
- “The Night Sky”
- Mark and the Stars
- Sparkling Stars
- “The Sun and the Moon”
- Search for Food
- The Sun Is Important
- “Cloud Shapes”
- The North Wind Blows
- Soar to the Moon
- Complex Anchor Texts (Teacher Read Aloud)
- Concepts About Print Skills
- Punctuation: periods, exclamation points, question marks, commas, quotation marks
- Uppercase letters
- Directionality: Return sweep
- Phonological Awareness Skills
- Phoneme identification
- Phoneme blending
- Delete syllables in compound words
- Phoneme categorization
- Phonics Skills
- Primary Skills:
- r-controlled /ar/ (farm)
- r-controlled /or/ (for, more, oar)
- r-controlled /er/ (girl, herb, spur)
- Secondary Skills:
- Compound words
- r-controlled syllables
- Word Families:
- --ar, -all
- -orn, -ore, -oar
- -ern, -urn
- Spiral Review:
- Long a, o, e, and i vowel teams, open syllables
- Primary Skills:
- High Frequency Words
- four
- great
- boy
- city
- laugh
- move
- change
- away
- every
- near
- school
- earth
- Fluency Skills
- Rate
- Self-Correcting
- Intonation
- Accuracy
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Apply previously taught metacognitive strategies.
- Apply previously taught fix-up strategies.
- Comprehension Skills
- Describe characters, settings, and major events using key details
- Distinguish between information in pictures and text
- Explain the difference between stories and informational texts
- Use illustrations and details to describe key ideas
- Describe the connection between two individuals, events, ideas, or pieces of information in a text
- Identify main topic and retell key details
- Understand the central message
- Vocabulary Strategies
- Use context as a clue to word meaning
- Distinguish shades of meaning among verbs
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- General Academic Vocabulary
- lovely
- invited
- star
- sky
- harm
- faithful
- Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- craters
- gravity
- meteors
- planets
- rotate
- reflects
- constellations
- observe
- General Academic Vocabulary
- Writing Skills
- Process Writing Skills:
- Write Opinion Text: Students write opinions drawing on the unit video, readings, and personal perspectives
- Grammar Skills:
- Pronouns
- Past-, present-, and future-tense verbs of being
- Process Writing Skills:
Unit 9: We Use Goods and Services
Key Learning(s)
- Essential Question:
- Why do people trade with each other?
- Enduring Understandings:
- The exchange of goods and services is an essential part of living in a community.
- There are many different ways to create goods and provide services.
- Unit Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- provide
- opinion
- good
- service
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts (Teacher Read Aloud)
- “From Dairy Farm to You”
- “The Most Important Service”
- In My Opinion. . . Goods and Services Are Important
- The Shoemaker and the Elves
- Shared Readings (We Read)
- “The Breakfast Trade”
- “Cushy Cow Bonny”
- “The Animal Store”
- “A Pet Needs a Vet”
- “Rat-a-Tat-Tat”
- “Pay and Play at the Zoo”
- “Crocodile”
- Decodable Readings (Students Read)
- “Trading Then and Now”
- Our Town
- All Around Town
- “Good Boy, Scruffs!”
- Roy and Joy
- Earthworm’s Soil
- “Jack’s Jobs”
- One Cool Day
- Brooms Sweep
- Complex Anchor Texts (Teacher Read Aloud)
- Concepts About Print Skills
- Locate Parts of a Book
- Review previously taught concepts
- Phonological Awareness Skills
- Phoneme categorization
- Phoneme blending
- Substitute parts of a blend
- Phoneme identification
- Phonics Skills
- Primary Skills:
- ou (house) and ow(clown)
- oi (join) and oy (boy)
- oo (broom) and oo (book)
- Secondary Skills:
- Comparatives (-er) and superlatives (-est)
- Suffixes: -ly
- Vowel team syllables
- Word Families:
- -out, -ouse, -own
- -oil, -oin
- -oom, -ood
- Spiral Review:
- r-controlled syllables
- Primary Skills:
- High Frequency Words
- before
- done
- about
- even
- walk
- buy
- only
- through
- does
- another
- wash
- some
- Fluency Skills
- Rate
- Pausing
- Accuracy
- Phrasing
- Inflection, intonation, stress
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Apply previously taught metacognitive strategies.
- Apply previously taught fix-up strategies.
- Comprehension Skills
- Retell a nonfiction text, using topic and relevant ideas
- Identify stanzas and line breaks in a poem
- Identify the author’s opinion about a topic
- Compare and contrast two texts on the same topic
- Identify and describe main story elements
- Identify and explain the moral of a story
- Retell a story, using main story elements
- Vocabulary Strategies
- Identify and use context clues to determine meaning
- Identify and use base words and their inflections
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- General Academic Vocabulary
- protect
- provide
- energy
- save lives
- make life easier
- succeed
- stitch
- Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- service
- good
- customer
- make a living
- earn
- General Academic Vocabulary
- Writing Skills
- Process Writing Skills:
- Write a shared research report: The teacher and students research, plan, draft, and revise a research report based on the unit topic.
- Grammar Skills:
- Use commas in a series
- Form plural possessives
- Process Writing Skills:
Unit 10: Exploring Sound, Light, and Heat
Key Learning(s)
- Essential Question:
- How would our lives be different without sound, light, and heat?
- Enduring Understandings:
- Living things use energy in the form of sound, light, and heat every day.
- We can use our senses to build knowledge about light, sound, and heat
- Unit Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- energy
- source
- move
- movement
- senses
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts (Teacher Read Aloud)
- “Sounds I Love”
- “Heat Is All Around”
- I Hear with My Ears
- The Light Around Us
- Shared Readings (We Read)
- “Dawn Is the Best Time of Day”
- “Animal Talk”
- “I Know All the Sounds That Animals Make”
- “I Clap My Hands”
- “Good Vibrations”
- “My Shadow”
- “How Shadows Form”
- Decodable Readings (Students Read)
- “Do You Know Me?”
- All About Storms
- Food Grows
- “Loud All Around”
- What Does Paul See?
- Crows Caw
- “Light and Shadow”
- The Hermit Crab
- In the Woods
- Complex Anchor Texts (Teacher Read Aloud)
- Concepts About Print Skills
- Punctuation: periods, question marks, exclamation points, dashes, hyphens, quotation marks
- Uppercase letters
- Phonological Awareness Skills
- Phoneme categorization
- Phoneme blending
- Delete parts of a blend
- Phonics Skills
- Primary Skills:
- Silent letters (wr, kn, gn)
- aw (saw), au (Paul), al (chalk), augh (caught)
- long e (y, ey)
- Secondary Skills:
- Suffixes: -ful, -less
- Consonant -le syllables
- Word Families:
- -oon, -ool
- -aw, -awn
- -eep, -ey
- Spiral Review:
- Vowel team syllables (ou, ow, oi, oy, oo, oo), suffix -ly
- Primary Skills:
- High Frequency Words
- better
- carry
- learn
- very
- mother
- father
- never
- below
- blue
- answer
- eight
- any
- Fluency Skills
- Rate
- Pausing
- Self-Correcting
- Phrasing
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Apply previously taught metacognitive strategies.
- Apply previously taught fix-up strategies.
- Comprehension Skills
- Draw inferences to identify who is telling the story
- Identify words and phrases that appeal to the senses
- Use illustrations and details to describe key ideas
- Draw inferences to describe the setting of the story
- Compare and contrast the adventures and experiences of characters
- Use illustrations and details to describe characters
- Use text features to locate key information
- Explain the difference between stories and informational texts
- Vocabulary Strategies
- Use content as a clue to the meaning of multiple meaning words
- Identify real-life connections between words and their use
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- General Academic Vocabulary
- shriek
- clang
- handier
- thunder
- swishing
- assists
- Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- transferred
- matter
- shines
- clear
- pass through
- straight line
- General Academic Vocabulary
- Writing Skills
- Process Writing Skills:
- Write poems: Students study mentor poetry and draft, revise, and edit their own poems based on the unit topic.
- Grammar Skills:
- Irregular plural nouns
- irregularly conjugated verbs
- Correct noun-verb agreement
- Process Writing Skills:
Grade 2
Click the + to expand.
- Unit 1: Plants and Animals in Their Habitats
- Unit 2: Characters Facing Challenges
- Unit 3: Government at Work
- Unit 4: Many Characters, Many Points of View
- Unit 5: Solving Problems Through Technology
- Unit 6: Tales to Live By
- Unit 7: Investigating the Past
- Unit 8: Wind and Water Change Earth
- Unit 9: Buyers and Sellers
- Unit 10: States of Matter
Unit 1: Plants and Animals in Their Habitats
Key Learning(s)
- Essential Question:
- How do living things get what they need to survive?
- Enduring Understandings:
- The world has many types of habitats, with different weather, seasons, animals, and plants.
- Living things have different features that help them meet their needs in their habitat.
- Reading about animal characters in literature can help us understand animals and their habitats.
- Unit Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- survive
- habitat
- season
- weather
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts
- “Emperor Penguin Habitat”
- “Postcards from Alex”
- “Habitats Around the World”
- “Filiberto in the Valley”
- “The Bat”
- Vocabulary Practice Texts
- “The Changing Arctic”
- “A Day in the Rainforest”
- “Sunnyside Animal Clinic”
- Decodable Readings
- “The Frogs and the Well”
- “Life in the Ocean”
- “Meet Ranger Diaz”
- “The Venus Flytrap”
- “Nolan and the Lionfish”
- “Bats, Bats, Bats!”
- “Rain, Rain, Go Away!”
- “All About Squirrels”
- “My Desert Blog”
- Complex Anchor Texts
- Phonological Awareness Skills
- Blend and segment CVC words
- Substitute medial vowel sounds
- Blend and segment multisyllabic words by syllable
- Blend and segment words with initial blends
- Delete sounds in a blend
- Phonics Skills
- Primary Skills:
- Closed syllable patterns
- Open syllable patterns
- Long a vowel team syllable patterns (a, ai, ea, ay, a_e)
- Secondary Skills:
- Three-letter blends
- Spiral Review:
- Short vowels
- Initial and final blends
- Digraphs (ch, sh, th, -tch, wh, -ng)
- Silent e (CVe) syllable pattern
- Primary Skills:
- High Frequency Words
- Review the following words from Kindergarten and 1st grade: a, can, and, come, are, for, big, go, has, I, have, is, jump, my, one, put, the, want, what, you, he, like, little, no, of, saw, this, to, we, with.
- Fluency Skills
- Expression: Characterization/Feelings
- Confirm and correct word recognition and understanding
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Ask questions
- Create mental images
- Reread to clarify or confirm understanding
- Read on to clarify or confirm understanding
- Comprehension Skills
- Identify main idea and key details
- Explain how images contribute and clarify a text
- Recount stories
- Describe the overall structure of a story
- Compare and contrast the most important points in two texts on the same topic
- Introduce poetry
- Vocabulary Strategy
- Use context as a clue to determine word meaning
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- General Academic Vocabulary
- paddle
- survive
- unique
- shallow
- take advantage of
- presence
- Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- habitats
- burrow
- nature
- tropical
- domestic
- clinic
- General Academic Vocabulary
- Writing Skills
- Text-Based Prompt Writing Skills:
- Informative/Explanatory Writing: Students use facts and evidence from provided sources to plan, draft, revise, and edit informative response based on given prompts related to the unit topic.
- Grammar Skills:
- Types of sentences: Command, Exclamation, Question, Statement
- Produce complete simple sentences (subjects and predicates)
- Use an apostrophe to form contractions and possessives
- Capitalize geographic names
- Form and use irregular past tense verbs
- Text-Based Prompt Writing Skills:
Unit 2: Characters Facing Challenges
Key Learning(s)
- Essential Question:
- What can we learn when we face problems?
- Enduring Understandings:
- All stories, whether traditional or modern, have characters who face problems.
- Characters in stories face problems caused by internal and external challenges.
- Readers can build knowledge about solving problems in the real world by looking at how characters face challenges in stories.
- Unit Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- challenge
- internal
- external
- solutions
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts
- “The Foolish Milkmaid”
- “The Daydreaming Sprinter”
- “Yeh-Shen”
- “Great Girl’s Contest”
- “Since Hanna Moved Away”
- Vocabulary Practice Texts
- “The Super School Bake-Off!”
- “Nora Saves the Day”
- “The Animal Birdhouse Competition”
- Decodable Readings
- “Lion and Mouse”
- “Willow and Toad”
- “King Midas”
- “Why Monkeys Live in Trees”
- “Bee and Daisy”
- “Mice on Ice”
- “Why Sun and Moon Live in the Sky”
- “Firefly Tricks Spider”
- Complex Anchor Texts
- Phonological Awareness Skills
- Blend and segment word with final blends
- Delete final sound in a blend
- Substitute sounds (part of blends in the final position)
- Blending and segmenting words with final blends
- Phonics Skills
- Primary Skills:
- Long o vowel team syllable patterns (o, oa, ow, oe, o_e)
- Long e vowel team syllable patterns (e, e_e, ee, ea, y, ey, ie)
- Long i vowel team syllable patterns (i, ie, y, igh, i_e)
- Secondary Skills:
- Plurals (-s, -es)
- Spiral Review:
- Long a vowel team syllable patterns (a, ai, ea, ay, a_e)
- Primary Skills:
- High Frequency Words
- Review the following words from Kindergarten and 1st grade: here, look, me, play, said, see, she, try, about, because, after, before, call, do, earth, father, give, her, know, large, good, many, near, off, people, right, that, two, under, very
- Fluency Skills
- Speed/Pacing: fast
- Pausing: short pauses
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Draw inferences
- Make connections
- Stop and think about the author’s purpose
- Read out loud to support comprehension
- Comprehension Skills
- Recount stories
- Describe how characters respond to major events and challenges
- Use illustrations and words to demonstrate understanding of characters, setting, and plot
- Determine their central message, lesson, or morals
- Understand figurative language used in poetry
- Vocabulary Strategy
- Distinguish shades of meaning among closely related verbs
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- General Academic Vocabulary
- dash
- jealous
- foolish
- crept
- hardworking
- announced
- exclaimed
- clumsy
- graceful
- generous
- accurate
- Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- disqualification
- General Academic Vocabulary
- Writing Skills
- Text-Based Prompt Writing Skills:
- Opinion Writing: Students state opinions about characters and support their opinions with evidence from the texts.
- Text-Based Prompt Writing Skills:
- Grammar Skills:
- Form and use irregular plural nouns
- Adjectives and adverbs
- Collective nouns
- Irregular plural nouns
- Reflective pronouns
Unit 3: Government at Work
Key Learning(s)
- Essential Question:
- Why do we need a government?
- Enduring Understandings:
- The U.S. Government provides laws and services to help protect the freedom and safety of the people.
- People can contribute to their communities and their government in many different ways.
- The United States can be represented by symbols and documents.
- Historical fiction is a genre that bases its stories and characters on actual events and people from the past.
- Unit Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- services
- community
- symbols
- protect
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts
- “Smoke Jumpers”
- “Can You Sew a Flag, Betsy Ross?”
- “Our Government’s Laws”
- “Getting a Message to General Washington”
- “Words Like Freedom”
- Vocabulary Practice Texts
- “FEMA: Helping the Community”
- “My Mom the Safety Monitor”
- “Colonel Tye”
- Decodable Readings
- “Rules and Laws”
- “Our Flag”
- “Vote for Lulu”
- “A Special Lady”
- “Martin Luther King Jr.”
- “Community Workers”
- “The New Guy”
- “Here Comes the Mail”
- “The President’s House”
- Complex Anchor Texts
- Phonological Awareness Skills
- Substitute medial vowel sounds
- Add initial and final sounds
- Blend and segment multisyllabic words by syllable
- Delete initial and final sounds
- Phonics Skills
- Primary Skills:
- Long u vowel team syllable patterns (u, ew, ue, u_e)
- r-controlled syllable patterns (ar)
- r-controlled syllable patterns (er, ir, ur)
- Secondary Skills:
- Inflectional endings (-ed & -ing, with no spelling change)
- Spiral Review:
- Long o vowel team syllable patterns (o, oa, ow, oe, o_e)
- Long e vowel team syllable patterns (e, e_e, ee, ea, y, ey, ie)
- Long i vowel team syllable patterns (i, ie, y, igh, i_e)
- Primary Skills:
- High Frequency Words
- Review the following words from Kindergarten and 1st grade: again, below, carry, does, eight, find, house, laugh, mother, school, move, never, once, round, small, their, too, walk, where, year, all, away, better, by, change, done, even, found, learn, only
- Fluency Skills
- Inflection/Intonation: pitch
- Phrasing: units of meaning in complex sentences
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Distinguish between important and unimportant information
- Summarize and synthesize
- Read more slowly and think about the words
- Reread to clarify or confirm understanding
- Comprehension Skills
- Identify main ideas and key details
- Describe the connection between a series of events, ideas, concepts, or steps
- Use illustrations and words to demonstrate understanding of characters, setting, or plot
- Compare and contrast key points in two texts about the same topic
- Acknowledge differences in the points of view of characters
- Understand imagery in poetry
- Vocabulary Strategy
- Use context as a clue to determine the meaning of words and phrases
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- General Academic Vocabulary
- symbol
- gear
- strength
- allowed
- programs
- local
- ticket
- eager
- urgent
- puzzled
- enemy
- Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- citizens
- General Academic Vocabulary
- Writing Skills
- Process Writing Skills:
- Informative/Explanatory Writing: Students use facts and details from research sources to plan, draft, revise, and edit informative essay about a self-selected topic related to the unit.
- Grammar Skills:
- Form and use irregular past tense irregular verbs
- Use collective nouns
- Use reflexive pronouns
- Process Writing Skills:
Unit 4: Many Characters, Many Points of View
Key Learning(s)
- Essential Question:
- How can a story change depending who tells it?
- Enduring Understandings:
- Folktales are traditional stories that often teach a lesson and are part of many cultures.
- Every story is narrated from a unique point of view and that point of view shapes the story.
- We can learn valuable lessons about understanding others, working together, and problem-solving through stories
- Unit Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- character
- narrator
- perspective
- lesson
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts
- “The Blind Men and the Elephant”
- “How the Beetle Got Its Gorgeous Coat”
- “Stone Soup”
- “The Stone Garden”
- “Read to Me”
- Vocabulary Practice Texts
- “The One Turnip Garden”
- “Clean Water”
- “A Helping Hand”
- Decodable Readings
- “The Perfect Pet”
- “How Cow Got Its Horns”
- “Fox Makes Friends”
- “The Shoemaker and the Elves”
- “City Mouse and Country Mouse”
- “Fearless Jess”
- “Pecos Bill”
- “The Three Bears”
- “Far From Earth”
- Complex Anchor Texts
- Phonological Awareness Skills
- Delete initial sound in a blend
- Add initial and final sound
- Substitute medial vowel sounds
- Substitute initial and final sounds
- Phonics Skills
- Primary Skills:
- r-controlled syllable patterns (or, oar, ore)
- r-controlled syllable patterns (ear, eer, ere)
- r-controlled syllable patterns (air, are, ear, ere)
- Secondary Skills:
- Contractions with ‘t and ‘s
- Spiral Review:
- Long u vowel team syllable patterns (u, ew, ue, u_e)
- r-controlled syllable patterns (ar)
- r-controlled syllable patterns (er, ir, ur)
- Primary Skills:
- High Frequency Words
- Review the following words from Kindergarten and 1st grade: long, now, our, some, them, through, upon, was, when, work, always, any, blue, buy, city, draw, four, great, how, live, another, boy, could, every, far, from, hurt, over, out, these
- Fluency Skills
- Expression: anticipation/mood
- Speed/Pacing: slow
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Ask questions
- Create mental images
- Read on to clarify or confirm understanding
- Stop and think about the author’s message
- Comprehension Skills
- Describe the overall structure of a story
- Acknowledge differences in the points of view of characters
- Describe how characters respond to major events and challenges
- Determine the central message, lesson, or moral of a story
- Compare and contrast two versions of the same story
- Understand imagery in poetry
- Vocabulary Strategy
- Describe how words and phrases supply meaning in a story
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- General Academic Vocabulary
- cultures
- interrupted
- admired
- boasted
- originated
- villager
- smacked
- proud
- tidy
- world-class
- indeed
- Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- n/a
- General Academic Vocabulary
- Writing Skills
- Text-Based Prompt Writing Skills:
- Narrative Writing: Students study mentor texts in order to plan, draft, revise, and edit a narrative response to a prompt about a story.
- Grammar Skills:
- Use reflexive pronouns
- Use adjectives and adverbs
- Use irregular past-tense verbs
- Text-Based Prompt Writing Skills:
Unit 5: Solving Problems Through Technology
Key Learning(s)
- Essential Question:
- Where do ideas for inventions come from?
- Enduring Understandings:
- People are constantly inventing new things to solve problems.
- Inventions are often inspired by nature.
- Anyone can be an inventor.
- Unit Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- invention
- engineer
- problem
- solve
- solution
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts
- “A Woman with a Vision”
- “A Lucky Accident”
- “Two Famous Inventors”
- “Robots Go to School”
- “Eletelephony”
- Vocabulary Practice Texts
- “Reading with Your Fingertips”
- “When I Grow Up”
- “Welcome to Our School”
- Decodable Readings
- “Found!”
- “Kid Inventors”
- “A Cool Situation”
- “A Noisy Problem”
- “The Curious Boy”
- “Satellites”
- “Keeping Food Cold”
- “Robots”
- “Music for Joy”
- Complex Anchor Texts
- Phonological Awareness Skills
- Blend and segment multisyllabic words by syllable
- Add initial and final sounds
- Delete final sound in a blend
- Delete initial and final sounds
- Phonics Skills
- Primary Skills:
- Silent e (VCe) syllable patterns (a_e, e_e, i_e, o_e, u_e)
- Vowel team syllable patterns with oi and oy
- Vowel team syllable patterns with ou and ow
- Secondary Skills:
- Inflectional endings with -es (with changing y to i)
- Spiral Review:
- r-controlled syllable patterns (or, oar, ore)
- r-controlled syllable patterns (ear, eer, ere)
- r-controlled syllable patterns (air, are, ear, ere)
- Primary Skills:
- High Frequency Words
- Review the following words from Kindergarten and 1st grade: answer, brown, country, start, then, there, wash, went, who, your, began, different, enough, few, grow, they, were, which, why, follow, girl, head, idea, kind, might, next, paper
- Introduce the following words: above, enough, idea, leave, often
- Fluency Skills
- Pausing: full stops
- Expression: anticipation/mood
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Draw inferences
- Distinguish between important and unimportant information
- Read out loud to support comprehension
- Read more slowly and think about the words
- Comprehension Skills
- Identify main ideas and key details
- Identify the author’s main purpose for writing the text
- Explain how images contribute and clarify a text
- Describe the connection between a series of events, ideas, concepts, or steps
- Compare and contrast the most important points in two texts on the same topic.
- Understand rhyme and rhythm in poetry
- Vocabulary Strategies
- Determine the meaning of compound words
- Determine the meaning of words and phrases in a text
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- General Academic Vocabulary
- vison
- device
- observation
- disabilities
- improvements
- opportunities
- benefited
- limitations
- maneuver
- experience
- signal
- Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- inventor
- General Academic Vocabulary
- Writing Skills
- Process Writing Skills:
- Opinion Writing: Students formulate opinions about a technology-related issue and plan, draft, revise, and edit an essay using reasons and evidence from unit texts and other sources.
- Grammar Skills:
- Use an apostrophe to form possessives
- Use irregular past-tense verbs
- Capitalize the names of holidays, products, and geographical places
- Produce complete simple sentences
- Process Writing Skills:
Unit 6: Tales to Live By
Key Learning(s)
- Essential Question:
- What can different cultures teach us?
- Enduring Understandings:
- Storytelling is a very old tradition shared by many cultures around the world.
- People tell stories to entertain, educate, and share ideas.
- There are common themes, or central messages, that can be found in folktales across many cultures.
- Readers can build knowledge and understanding about different cultures and traditions, and learn valuable lessons, from folktales.
- Unit Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- cultures
- folktale
- storytelling
- message
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts
- “The Village of the Moon Rain”
- “The Huemul Egg”
- “A Foxy Garden”
- “Why the Sky Is Far Away”
- “Be Glad Your Nose Is on Your Face”
- Vocabulary Practice Texts
- “The Rabbit and the Coyote”
- “How Tiger Got His Stripes”
- “The First Strawberries”
- Decodable Readings
- “The Brothers Grimm”
- “Mercury and the Ax”
- “Hansel and Gretel”
- “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”
- “The Many Tales of Red Riding Hood”
- “Stone Soup”
- “Rumpelstiltskin”
- “No Small Trick”
- “The Legend of the Talking Feather”
- Complex Anchor Texts
- Phonological Awareness Skills
- Delete final sound in a blend
- Delete initial and final sounds
- Delete initial sound in a blend
- Substitute sounds (parts of blends in the final position)
- Substitute initial, medial, and final sounds
- Phonics Skills
- Primary Skills:
- Vowel team syllable patterns with oo, ui, ew, ue, u, ou, oe, and u_e
- Vowel team syllable patterns with oo and u
- Vowel team syllable patterns with (w)a, al, aw, au
- -le syllable pattern
- Secondary Skills:
- homophones
- Spiral Review:
- Silent e (VCe) syllable patterns (a_e, e_e, i_e, o_e, u_e)
- Vowel team syllable patterns with oi and oy
- Vowel team syllable patterns with ou and ow
- Primary Skills:
- High Frequency Words
- point
- river
- second
- song
- think
- three
- until
- watch
- white
- young
- add
- between
- close
- example
- food
- group
- hear
- home
- left
- mountain
- music
- night
- old
- picture
- sentence
- spell
- thought
- together
- while
- world
- Fluency Skills
- Inflection/Intonation: pitch
- Expression: dramatic expression
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Summarize and synthesize
- Make connections
- Reread to clarify or confirm understanding
- Read on to clarify or confirm understanding
- Comprehension Skills
- Ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of key details
- Determine the central message, lesson, or moral of stories
- Acknowledge differences in points of view of characters
- Use illustrations and words to demonstrate understanding of characters, setting, and plot.
- Understand alliteration and humor in poetry.
- Vocabulary Strategy
- Identify real-life connections between words and their use
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- General Academic Vocabulary
- ancestors
- disappear
- stumbled
- rudely
- wise
- selfish
- tricked
- agreed
- concealed
- scrumptious
- floated
- angry
- Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- n/a
- General Academic Vocabulary
- Writing Skills
- Process Writing Skills:
- Narrative Writing: Students brainstorm, plan, draft, revise, and edit their own stories after studying a mentor text.
- Grammar Skills:
- Produce, expand, and rearrange complete compound sentences
- Choose between adjectives and adverbs
- Process Writing Skills:
Unit 7: Investigating the Past
Key Learning(s)
- Essential Question:
- How does understanding the past shape the future?
- Enduring Understandings:
- Primary sources include firsthand accounts, photographs, writings, maps, and artifacts.
- Primary sources help people learn about history and understand what life was like in the past.
- People search for artifacts and fossils in order to better understand the past.
- Understanding and learning from the past helps people better plan for the future.
- Unit Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- artifacts
- past
- firsthand account
- primary sources
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts
- “The Oregon Trail”
- “Ranch Flyer”
- “Primary Sources”
- “A Dinosaur Named SUE”
- “Crazy Boys”
- Vocabulary Practice Texts
- “Road Trip with My Dad”
- “Pen Pals from the Past and Present”
- “I Met SUE”
- Decodable Readings
- “The Wright Brothers Take Off!”
- “My Freedom Diary”
- “The Baseball”
- “A Letter to the City”
- “Family Album”
- “Sacagawea”
- “How to Make a Time Capsule”
- “A Desert Discovery”
- “The History Lady”
- Complex Anchor Texts
- Phonological Awareness Skills
- Blend and segment multisyllabic words by syllable
- Add initial and final sounds
- Substitute sounds (part of blends in the final position)
- Substitute initial, medial, and final sounds
- Delete final sounds in a blend
- Delete initial and final sounds
- Phonics Skills
- Primary Skills:
- Compound words
- Silent letters (wr, kn, gn)
- Inflectional endings with spelling changes (drop final e, double consonant)
- Related root words
- Secondary Skills:
- Contractions with ‘ll, ‘ve, ‘m
- Spiral Review:
- Open and closed syllable patterns
- Vowel team syllable patterns with oo, ui, ew, ue, u, ou, oe, and u_e
- Vowel team syllable patterns with oo and u
- Vowel team syllable patterns with (w)a, al, aw, au
- Primary Skills:
- High Frequency Words
- air
- along
- begin
- children
- important
- letter
- open
- own
- sound
- talk
- almost
- animal
- around
- color
- eye
- form
- high
- light
- story
- across
- become
- complete
- during
- happened
- hundred
- problem
- toward
- study
- wind
- Fluency Skills
- Confirm or correct word recognition and understanding
- Speed/Pacing; varied
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Apply previously taught metacognitive strategies
- Apply previously taught fix-up strategies
- Comprehension Skills
- Identify main ideas and key details
- Use text features to locate key facts or information
- Describe the connection between a series of events, ideas, concepts, or steps
- Explain how images contribute and clarify a text
- Understand figurative language and imagery in poetry
- Vocabulary Strategy
- Distinguish shades of meaning among related adjectives
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- General Academic Vocabulary
- exhausted
- supplies
- minute
- amazing
- exist
- past
- event
- letters
- gigantic
- skillful
- Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- museum
- exhibit
- General Academic Vocabulary
- Writing Skills
- Process Writing Skills:
- Narrative Nonfiction Writing: Students plan, draft, revise, and edit narrative nonfiction in the form of letters.
- Grammar Skills:
- Use commas in greetings and closings of letters
- Use apostrophe to form contractions
- Produce complete simple sentences
- Compare and contrast formal and informal uses of English
- Process Writing Skills:
Unit 8: Wind and Water Change Earth
Key Learning(s)
- Essential Question:
- How do we react to changes in nature?
- Enduring Understandings:
- Wind and water cause weathering and erosion, changing the shape of land.
- Changes can happen slowly, over a long period of time, or quickly.
- Human activity can case changes to Earth’s surface that affect living things.
- Scientists record weather patterns to make predictions which can help people prepare for severe weather.
- Unit Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- force
- damage
- wear away
- storm
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts
- “Tornado!”
- “Water’s Awesome Wonder”
- “Earth’s Changes”
- “Naples Daily Tidings”
- “Weather”
- Vocabulary Practice Texts
- “Hurricane Days”
- “Dust Storm”
- “Avalanche!”
- Decodable Readings
- “Dust Storm!”
- “The Big Blizzard”
- “Sam Kent’s Journal”
- “Our Sandcastles”
- “My Beach”
- “Mudslide”
- “The Contest”
- “Let’s Debate”
- “Earth’s Changing Mountains”
- Complex Anchor Texts
- Phonological Awareness Skills
- Substitute initial, medial, and final sounds
- Substitute sounds (part of blends in the final position)
- Blend and segment multisyllabic words by syllable
- Add initial and final sounds
- Phonics Skills
- Primary Skills:
- Irregular plural nouns
- Suffixes: -er, -or
- Comparative and superlative suffixes: -er, -est
- Secondary Skills:
- homographs
- Spiral Review:
- r-controlled vowel syllable patterns
- Primary Skills:
- High Frequency Words
- against
- certain
- door
- early
- field
- heard
- knew
- listen
- morning
- several
- area
- ever
- hours
- measure
- notice
- order
- piece
- short
- today
- true
- covered
- cried
- figure
- horse
- money
- products
- question
- since
- usually
- voice
- Fluency Skills
- Inflection/Intonation: volume
- Confirm or correct word recognition and understanding
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Apply previously taught metacognitive strategies
- Apply previously taught fix-up strategies
- Comprehension Skills
- Explain how images contribute and clarify a text
- Describe the connection between a series of events, ideas, concepts, or steps
- Identify the author’s main purpose for writing a text
- Analyze how the author’s reasons support specific points in the text
- Compare and contrast the most important points in two texts on the same topic
- Vocabulary Strategy
- Use context clues to determine word meaning
- Use dictionaries and glossaries to determine word meaning
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- General Academic Vocabulary
- flowed
- mighty
- rises
- warning
- rushing
- bits
- breeze
- lessen
- banks
- damage
- heavy
- waist deep
- Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- n/a
- General Academic Vocabulary
- Writing Skills
- Process Writing Skills:
- Research Project: Students choose a topic related to Earth science, select sources, and plan, draft, revise, and edit a research project incorporating facts and details from sources.
- Grammar Skills:
- Use collective nouns
- Compare and contrast formal and informal uses of English
- Understand formal uses of English
- Capitalize the names of geographical places
- Use commas in greetings and closings of letters
- Process Writing Skills:
Unit 9: Buyers and Sellers
Key Learning(s)
- Essential Question:
- How do the goods we make, buy, and sell connect to us?
- Enduring Understandings:
- Goods are items made, bought, and sold.
- People use natural resources to make, or produce, goods.
- People make choices about what goods to buy based on their needs and wants.
- Producers, buyers, and sellers are all connected.
- Unit Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- produce
- producer
- goods
- resources
- choice
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts
- “From Tree to Baseball Bat”
- “Goat and Bear in Business”
- “From Pine Tree to Pizza Box”
- “Cherokee Art Fair”
- “Turtle Soup”
- Vocabulary Practice Texts
- “The History of Cars”
- “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle”
- “Come and Get Some Lemonade!”
- Decodable Readings
- “Allowance: For and Against”
- “A Baker’s Dozen”
- “Trading This for That”
- “Alissa’s Tag Sale”
- “Peanut Butter”
- “Zollipops”
- “Start a Business”
- “Picture It!”
- “Our Class Knows!”
- Complex Anchor Texts
- Phonological Awareness Skills
- Substitute initial, medial, and final sounds
- Add initial and final sounds
- Blend and segment multisyllabic words by syllable
- Phonics Skills
- Primary Skills:
- Suffixes: -y, -ly
- Schwa
- Silent letters (gn, kn, wr, mb)
- Secondary Skills:
- Irregular plural nouns
- Spiral Review:
- Inflectional endings with spelling changes
- Primary Skills:
- High Frequency Words
- able
- behind
- carefully
- common
- easy
- fact
- remember
- sure
- vowel
- whole
- ago
- government
- half
- machine
- pair
- quickly
- scientist
- thousand
- understood
- wait
- among
- building
- circle
- decided
- finally
- heavy
- include
- nothing
- special
- wheel
- Fluency Skills
- Inflection/Intonation: stress
- Phrasing: units of meaning in complex sentences
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Apply previously taught metacognitive strategies
- Apply previously taught fix-up strategies
- Comprehension Skills
- Describe the connection between a series of events, ideas, concepts, or steps
- Explain how images contribute and clarify a text
- Use illustrations and words to demonstrate understanding of characters, setting, and plot
- Describe how characters respond to major events and challenges
- Compare and contrast the most important points in two texts on the same topic
- Vocabulary Strategies
- Determine the meaning of compound words
- Determine the meaning of words with prefixes
- Determine the meaning of words and phrases in a text
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- General Academic Vocabulary
- shipped
- weigh
- purchased
- business
- protect
- steps
- annual
- remembered
- represent
- greeted
- Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- products
- natural resources
- General Academic Vocabulary
- Writing Skills
- Process Writing Skills:
- Multimedia Presentation: Students conduct research, create a multimedia presentation about a topic related to the unit, and present it to their peers.
- Grammar Skills:
- Use adjectives and adverbs
- Use irregular past tense verbs
- Compare and contrast formal and informal language
- Process Writing Skills:
Unit 10: States of Matter
Key Learning(s)
- Essential Question:
- How can matter change?
- Enduring Understandings:
- Everything is made up of matter.
- Matter has three states: solid, liquid, gas.
- We can describe and sort matter by its physical properties.
- Physical properties of matter (such as size, shape, and state) can change.
- Some changes to matter can be reversed and others cannot.
- Unit Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- describe
- state
- change(s)
- property/properties
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts
- “The Art of Origami”
- “Sand Sculpture”
- “Matter Changes in Many Ways”
- “Crazy Horse Memorial”
- “It’s All Weather”
- Vocabulary Practice Texts
- “Amazing Sea Creatures”
- A Snowy Experiment”
- “When Galaxies Collide”
- Decodable Readings
- “Lemonade”
- “World’s Best Glass Art”
- “Up, Up and Away”
- “Tyler’s Party”
- “Sand Becomes Glass!”
- “Water!”
- “Changing Liquids and Solids”
- “Beautiful Ice Cities”
- “New Planets”
- Complex Anchor Texts
- Phonological Awareness Skills
- Substitute initial, medial, and final sounds
- Add initial and final sounds
- Blend and segment multisyllabic words by syllable
- Phonics Skills
- Primary Skills:
- Singular and plural possessive nouns
- Prefixes: un-, re-, dis-
- Suffixes: -ful, -less
- Secondary Skills:
- irregular plural nouns
- Spiral Review:
- Suffixes: -y, -ly
- Schwa
- Primary Skills:
- High Frequency Words
- brought
- contain
- front
- gave
- inches
- material
- noun
- ocean
- strong
- verb
- built
- correct
- inside
- island
- language
- oh
- person
- street
- system
- warm
- dark
- clear
- explain
- force
- minutes
- object
- plane
- power
- produce
- surface
- Fluency Skills
- Confirm or correct word recognition and understanding
- Inflection/Intonation: volume
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Apply previously taught metacognitive strategies
- Apply previously taught fix-up strategies
- Comprehension Skills
- Describe the connection between a series of events, ideas, concepts, or steps
- Explain how images contribute and clarify a text
- Ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of key details
- Use text features to locate key facts or information
- Vocabulary Strategies
- Use known root word as a clue to the meaning of an unknown word
- Identify real-life connections to between words and their use
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- General Academic Vocabulary
- spread
- create
- stunning
- smooth
- undergoes
- properties
- boils
- transformed
- miles
- models
- measured
- Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- natural forces
- General Academic Vocabulary
- Writing Skills
- Process Writing Skills:
- Poetry Writing: Students study mentor poetry and draft, revise, and edit their own poems.
- Grammar Skills:
- Produce complete simple sentences
- Use irregular plural nouns
- Process Writing Skills:
Grade 3
Click the + to expand.
- Unit 1: Animal Adaptations
- Unit 2: Ways Characters Shape Stories
- Unit 3: Government for the People
- Unit 4: Comparing Points of View
- Unit 5: Advancements in Technology
- Unit 6: Making Decisions
- Unit 7: Communities - Then and Now
- Unit 8: Weather and Climate
- Unit 9: Spending Time and Money
- Unit 10: Forces and Interactions
Unit 1: Animal Adaptations
Key Learning(s)
- Essential Question:
- How do living things survive in their environment?
- Enduring Understandings:
- Over time, groups of living things develop and pass down certain features or traits that help them survive in their environments.
- An adaptation is an inherited feature that helps a living thing survive where it lives.
- Different animals have different adaptations for survival depending on where they live, where they eat, and what they need for protection.
- Unit Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- characteristic
- adaptation
- environment
- survive
- survival
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts
- “Animals Disguises”
- “Animals’ Tools for Survival”
- “Animal Coverings”
- “One Body Many Adaptations”
- “Something Told the Wild Geese”
- Vocabulary Practice Texts
- “How I Blend In”
- “Observations of the Kangaroo Rat”
- “The Walrus”
- Decodable Readings
- “How Animals Stay Cool”
- “How Animals Stay Warm”
- “The Remarkable Teeth of a Shark”
- “How Beaver Got His Flat Tail”
- “Why Turtle Sleeps Through Winter”
- “Caterpillar Self-Defense”
- “The Great Snowy Owl”
- “The Coolest Monkeys on Earth”
- “Why Loons Have Flat Backs”
- Complex Anchor Texts
- Phonics and Word Study Skills
- Short vowels
- Long a (a_e, ai, ay, a)
- Long o (o_e, oa, ow, o)
- Long u (u_e, ue, ew, u)
- Fluency Skill
- Pausing: short pauses
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Ask questions
- Create mental images
- Reread to clarify or confirm understanding
- Comprehension Skills
- Determine main idea and recount key details
- Describe compare-and-contrast relationships and connections in a text
- Compare and contrast how two authors present information on the same topic
- Refer explicitly to the text to draw inferences
- Understand features of poetry
- Vocabulary Strategy
- Use context clues to determine the meaning of unknown words
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- advantage
- blending in
- characteristics
- surfaces
- functions
- role
- classified
- various
- consume
- frigid
- shed
- special features
- Writing Skills
- Text-Based Prompt Writing Skills:
- Informative/Explanatory Writing: Students use facts and evidence from provided print and multimedia sources to plan, draft, revise, and edit an informative essay based on a prompt based on the unit topic.
- Grammar Skills:
- Form and use regular plural nouns
- Use abstract nouns
- Form and use regular present tense verbs
- Ensure subject-verb agreement
- From simple sentences
- Text-Based Prompt Writing Skills:
Unit 2: Ways Characters Shape Stories
Key Learning(s)
- Essential Question:
- How do our actions influence our lives?
- Enduring Understandings:
- Writers tell traditional tales including fables, tall tales, myths, and folktales; these tales carry important messages and lessons for readers.
- Every action has a consequence, and a story’s plot is shaped by the actions of its characters.
- Readers can learn from characters’ actions and their consequences.
- People who think about the consequences of their actions can make caring and constructive decisions.
- Unit Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- actions
- constructive
- traditional tale
- consequence
- decision
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts
- “Two Aesop’s Fables: Dog and Bone & Ant and Dove”
- “Two Famous Poems”
- “The Tale of King Midas: A Greek Myth”
- “Uncle Parrot’s Wedding”
- “The Walrus and the Carpenter”
- Vocabulary Practice Texts
- “Foul Ball!”
- “A Special Dinner”
- “Good Dog!”
- Decodable Readings
- “Yay for Pete!”
- “Julie’s Bike”
- “Geese for the Queen”
- “Liza and the Giant”
- “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”
- “Theseus and the Minotaur”
- “Home Sweet Home”
- “Paul Bunyan and the Popcorn Blizzard”
- “Paul Bunyan’s Big Thirst”
- Complex Anchor Texts
- Phonics and Word Study Skills
- Long e (e_e, ea, ee, ey, y, ie, e)
- Long i (i_e, igh, y, ie, i)
- Compound words
- Fluency Skill
- Expression: Characterization/Feelings
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Draw inferences
- Make connections
- Reread to clarify or confirm understanding
- Read out loud to support comprehension
- Comprehension Skills
- Recount story details
- Refer to parts of a story
- Describe characters and explain how their actions contribute to events
- Compare and contrast the plots of stories
- Explain how illustrations contribute to a story
- Analyze poetic structure and nonliteral language
- Vocabulary Strategies
- Distinguish literal from nonliteral language – similes
- Use context clues to determine the meaning of words and phrases
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- gratefully
- reflection
- crips
- striking
- appetizing
- blurted
- giddily
- fonder
- beamed
- flustered
- nuisance
- resist
- Writing Skills
- Text-Based Prompt Writing Skills:
- Opinion Writing: Students respond to a prompt by stating opinions about characters and support their opinions with evidence from texts.
- Grammar Skills:
- Use adjectives and adverbs correctly
- Form and use irregular past tense verbs
- Form and use regular future tense verbs
- Text-Based Prompt Writing Skills:
Unit 3: Government for the People
Key Learning(s)
- Essential Question:
- Why do people participate in government?
- Enduring Understandings:
- Participating in government gives people a voice in how their lives are governed.
- In a democracy, people have a civic duty to take part in government and contribute to their communities.
- Throughout history, people in the United States protested unjust laws and worked with the government to gain rights and equal and fair treatment.
- There are many ways to participate in government, including: voting, proposing new laws, petitioning leaders, protesting inequality, and/or serving as a volunteer or worker
- Unit Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- civic duty
- protest
- responsibility
- equal
- equality
- rights
- participate
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts
- “Working Together”
- “Election Day”
- “Fighters for Rights: Rosa Parks and Cesar Chavez”
- “African Americans and Women Get the Right to Vote”
- “Lincoln Monument: Washington”
- Vocabulary Practice Texts
- “Remember to Vote!”
- “A Diary of a Farmworker”
- “Chinese Americans Get the Right to Vote”
- Decodable Readings
- “Wave the Flag!”
- “Electing a President”
- “Robert’s Rules of Order”
- “A Debate About Voting”
- “Thomas Paine”
- “Your Local Government”
- “Checks and Balances”
- “One Nation from Many”
- Complex Anchor Texts
- Phonics and Word Study Skills
- r-Controlled vowels with ar and or, ore, oar
- r-Controlled vowels with er, ir, ur
- Closed syllables
- Fluency Skills
- Inflection/Intonation: pitch
- Phrasing: units of meaning in complex sentences
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Distinguish between important and unimportant information
- Summarize and synthesize
- Read more slowly and think about the words
- Reread to clarify or confirm understanding
- Comprehension Skills
- Describe cause/effect relationships and connections in a text
- Use information gained from graphic features and text
- Describe sequential relationships and connections in a text
- Determine main idea and recount key details
- Use text evidence to draw inferences
- Compare and contrast the most important points in two texts on the same topic
- Analyze nonliteral language in poetry
- Vocabulary Strategy
- Use context clues to determine the meaning of words and phrases
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- General Academic Vocabulary
- responsibility
- volunteers
- victory
- ensure
- union
- vote
- Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- cast
- protested
- register
- rights
- strike
- taxes
- General Academic Vocabulary
- Writing Skills
- Process Writing Skills:
- Informative/Explanatory Writing: Students use facts and details from research sources to plan, draft, revise, and edit informative essay about a self-selected topic related to the unit.
- Grammar Skills:
- Form and use irregular past tense verbs
- Ensure pronoun-antecedent agreement
- Process Writing Skills:
Unit 4: Comparing Points of View
Key Learning(s)
- Essential Question:
- What makes people view the same experience differently?
- Enduring Understandings:
- The narrator and the characters in a story have different perspectives, or ways of looking at the story’s events.
- Authors can explore the same characters using different perspectives, settings, and literary genres.
- A play is a literary form with unique storytelling features.
- We can learn about ourselves – and others – by examining and respecting others’ perspectives.
- Unit Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- character
- examine
- perspective
- narrator
- literary
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts
- “Cinderella’s Very Bad Day”
- “Cinderella, Too Much for Words”
- “Rabbit and Coyote”
- “The Trial of Rabbit”
- “Fish in a Bowl”
- Vocabulary Practice Texts
- “The Perfect Snow Day”
- “The Mysterious Case of the Missing Package”
- “The Great Homework Trial”
- Decodable Readings
- “Two Cros and a Pitcher”
- “Half-Empty or Half-Full”
- “Cap O’ Rushes”
- “A Big Move”
- “The Blind Men and the Elephant”
- “Coyote’s Advice to His Pups”
- “King Midas”
- “My Favorite Way to Travel”
- “Farmer Joe’s New Employee”
- Complex Anchor Texts
- Phonics and Word Study Skills
- Open syllables
- Consonant -le syllables
- Vowel team syllables
- Fluency Skills
- Expression: anticipation/mood
- Speed/Pacing: slow
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Ask questions
- Create mental images
- Read on to clarify or confirm understanding
- Stop and think about the author’s purpose
- Comprehension Skills
- Distinguish reader’s point of view from that of the narrator or characters
- Describe how each part of a drama builds on previous parts
- Explain how illustrations contribute to a story
- Compare and contrast stories with similar characters
- Recount story details
- Analyze point of view in poetry
- Vocabulary Strategies
- Use context clues to determine the meaning of words and phrases
- Distinguish literal for nonliteral language
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- blanketed
- toil
- delectable
- horrendous
- abundance
- fleeing
- investigate
- pesky
- accused
- furious
- recall
- trial
- Writing Skills
- Text-Based Prompt Writing Skills:
- Narrative Writing: Students study mentor texts in order to plan, draft, revise, and edit a narrative response to a prompt about a story.
- Grammar Skills:
- Form and use comparative and superlative adjectives
- Use commas and quotation marks in dialogue
- Text-Based Prompt Writing Skills:
Unit 5: Advancements in Technology
Key Learning(s)
- Essential Question:
- What is the value of innovation?
- Enduring Understandings:
- Inventions and new technology are created to solve problems.
- Technology influences and changes how we live, work, communicate, play and learn.
- Inventors learn from and build upon the work of other inventors.
- Technology can help connect people and cultures.
- Unit Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- communication
- innovation
- develop
- information
- system
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts
- “Dr. Shirley Jackson’s Scientific Mind”
- “From Phone Calls to Videochat”
- “Thomas Edison: A Curious Mind”
- “Hear All About It! New Technologies to Help the Deaf”
- “My Smartphone Isn’t Very Smart”
- Vocabulary Practice Texts
- “Amazing Grace”
- “Anna Du, Sixth Grade Engineer”
- “Patricia Bath: Doctor and Inventor”
- Decodable Readings
- “Robots at Work”
- “Medical Robots”
- “The Longest Wire”
- “Surfing the Web”
- “Getting from Here to There”
- “George Eastman and the Kodak Camera”
- “Smart Plastic”
- “Robot to the Rescue”
- “From Snapshots to Selfies”
- Complex Anchor Texts
- Phonics Skills
- VCe syllable patterns
- Vowel-r syllable patterns
- Inflectional endings: -ed, -ing
- Fluency Skills
- Pausing: full stops
- Inflection/Intonation: pitch
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Draw inferences
- Distinguish between important and unimportant information
- Read out loud to support comprehension
- Read more slowly and think about the words
- Comprehension Skills
- Describe cause/effect relationships and connections in a text
- Distinguish reader’s point of view from that of the author
- Use information gained from illustrations/photographs and words
- Use text features to locate information
- Compare and contrast the important points in two texts on the same topic
- Analyze poetic structures
- Vocabulary Strategies
- Distinguish shades of meaning among related words (states of mind)
- Use context clues to determine the meaning of words and phrases
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- advances
- innovations
- concept
- distant
- concentrate
- inspiration
- obtained
- transmitted
- converts
- exchange
- integrate
- Writing Skills
- Process Writing Skills:
- Opinion Writing: Students formulate opinions about a technology-related issue and plan, draft, revise, and edit an essay using reasons and evidence from unit texts and other sources.
- Grammar Skills:
- Use coordinating conjunctions to produce compound sentences
- Use subordinating conjunctions to produce complex sentences
- Produce simple, compound, and complex sentences
- Process Writing Skills:
Unit 6: Making Decisions
Key Learning(s)
- Essential Question:
- What helps us solve problems?
- Enduring Understandings:
- Realistic fiction stories take place in real-life settings with believable characters and plots.
- Authors can approach similar themes in a variety of settings, with different plots and characters.
- Characters’ actions have consequences that impact the story.
- Readers can learn problem-solving and decision-making by thinking about characters’ actions and their consequences.
- Unit Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- actions
- decisions
- decision-making
- realistic fiction
- consequences
- impact
- problem-solving
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts
- “Addison and Rocky”
- “A President for Everyone”
- “Rapping Magicians”
- “The Big Game”
- “Choices”
- Vocabulary Practice Texts
- “A Helping Hand”
- “Camp Canoe”
- “The Dance off”
- Decodable Readings
- “Emma’s Secret Dream”
- “The Legend of Molly Pitcher”
- “The Incredible Goose”
- “Good Night”
- “Mr. Moody’s House”
- “The Kid and the Wolf”
- “The Right Choice”
- “A Difficult Decision”
- “Canine Cousins: The Fox and the Wolf”
- Phonics and Word Study Skills
- Irregular plurals
- Long oo (booth) and short oo (book)
- Diphthongs spelled with ou and ow
- Complex Anchor Texts
- Fluency Skills
- Inflection/Intonation: pitch
- Expression: dramatic expression
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Summarize and synthesize
- Make connections
- Reread to clarify or confirm understanding
- Read on to clarify or confirm understanding
- Comprehension Skills
- Explain how characters’ actions influence story events
- Determine the central message or lesson of a story
- Compare and contrast themes in stories by the same author
- Recount key story events
- Distinguish reader’s point of view from that of a character
- Explain the author’s purpose and message in a poem
- Vocabulary Strategies
- Use dictionaries to determine or clarify the precise meaning of key words and phrases
- Use context clues to determine the meaning of words and phrases
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- privilege
- vigorous
- designate
- honor
- afford
- magnificent
- real-looking
- registration
- strutting
- droop
- nudge
- rivals
- Writing Skills
- Text-Based Prompt Writing:
- Informative, Opinion, and Narrative Writing: Each week of the unit, students analyze a prompt, read source texts, and write a response to the prompt.
- Grammar Skills:
- Form and use irregular plural nouns
- Recognize the difference between written and spoken English
- Choose between regular comparative and superlative adjectives or adverbs depending on what is to be modified
- Text-Based Prompt Writing:
Unit 7: Communities - Then and Now
Key Learning(s)
- Essential Question:
- What is a community?
- Enduring Understandings:
- Communities are places where people live and work.
- Communities can be urban, suburban, or rural areas.
- Each community has its own unique and defining characteristics.
- History, culture, and geographical location impact communities and how they grow and change.
- Unit Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- characteristics
- culture
- history
- geographical location
- unique
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts
- “My St. Augustine Journal”
- “A New Life in Vermont”
- “All Kinds of Communities”
- “Sarah and the Chickens”
- “City”
- Vocabulary Practice Texts
- “From Somalia to Chicago”
- “Eatonville”
- “My Urban Vegetable Garden”
- Decodable Readings
- “The Mission District”
- “Life in the City”
- “Community Action”
- “Stone Soup”
- “The Levi Coffin House”
- “An Awesome Book”
- “People of the Longhouse”
- “Wind and Wildflowers”
- Complex Anchor Texts
- Phonics and Word Study Skills
- Suffixes: -er, -or
- Homophones
- Variant vowel with aw, ough, au, al, augh
- Fluency Skills
- Confirm or correct word recognition and understanding
- Speed/Pacing; varied
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Apply previously taught metacognitive strategies
- Apply previously taught fix-up strategies
- Comprehension Skills
- Distinguish reader’s point of view from that of the author
- Explain how characters’ actions contribute to events
- Explain how a text’s illustrations contribute to the story
- Explain how reasons support specific points an author makes in a text
- Use text features to locate information
- Compare and contrast key points in two texts on the same topic
- Distinguish literal from nonliteral language – metaphor – in poetry
- Vocabulary Strategies
- Use context clues to determine the meaning of words and phrases
- Identify real-life connections between words and their uses
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- founded
- residents
- gazing
- realtor
- current
- firsthand
- witness
- transform
- tucked
- shuffling
- plow
- Writing Skills
- Process Writing Skills:
- Narrative Nonfiction Writing: Students choose and research a historical time period and plan, draft, revise, and edit a story, incorporating their research.
- Grammar Skills:
- Review verb tenses (simple past, present, future)
- Form and use possessives
- Use commas and quotation marks in dialogue
- Choose words and phrases for effect
- Recognize and observe differences between the conventions of spoken and written English
- Process Writing Skills:
Unit 8: Weather and Climate
Key Learning(s)
- Essential Question:
- How do we understand change?
- Enduring Understandings:
- Weather can change from day to day or moment to moment.
- Scientists observe and record weather patterns over long periods of time to understand a regions climate.
- Earth has different climate zones with distinct seasons and weather patterns.
- Weather and climate affect people’s lives.
- Scientists can use climate data and knowledge of weather patterns to predict the weather.
- Unit Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- climate
- pattern
- predict
- prediction
- region
- temperature
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts
- “Fairweather clouds”
- “Earth’s Weather and Climate”
- “After a Storm”
- “The Tropical Rain Belt”
- “Who Has Seen the Wind”
- Vocabulary Practice Texts
- “The Great Blizzard”
- “Where’s Daisy?”
- “All About Hurricanes”
- Decodable Readings
- “Blizzard!”
- “Hurricane Watch”
- “Blizzard Alert!”
- “A Rainbow of Colors”
- “Pecos Bill Rides a Tornado”
- “How the North Island Came to Be”
- “Tornado!”
- “The Tidal Wave”
- “Predicting Hurricanes”
- Complex Anchor Texts
- Phonics and Word Study Skills
- Hard and soft c
- Hard and soft g
- Diphthong spelled with oi and oy
- Diphthong spelled with ow and ou
- Fluency Skills
- Inflection/Intonation: volume
- Confirm or correct word recognition and understanding
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Apply previously taught metacognitive strategies
- Apply previously taught fix-up strategies
- Comprehension Skills
- Determine the central message of a story.
- Use information gained from illustrations and words
- Describe cause/effect relationships and connections in a text
- Recount story details
- Distinguish reader’s point of view from that of the narrator and characters
- Compare and contrast the key points in two texts on the same topic
- Analyze personification and imagery in poetry
- Vocabulary Strategy
- Use context clues to determine the meaning of words and phrases
- Distinguish literal from nonliteral language - metaphors
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- thaw
- billowing
- factors
- extremes
- astonishment
- crinkled
- embrace
- flailed
- imbalance
- circulates
- exceed
- prone
- Writing Skills
- Process Writing Skills:
- Research Project: Students choose a topic related to Earth science, select sources, and plan, draft, revise, and edit a research project incorporating facts and details from sources.
- Grammar Skills:
- Use adjectives correctly
- Ensure pronoun-antecedent agreement
- Ensure subject-verb agreement
- Process Writing Skills:
Unit 9: Spending Time and Money
Key Learning(s)
- Essential Question:
- What do our economic choices tell us about ourselves?
- Enduring Understandings:
- Economic resources include both time and money, and people are constantly making decisions about these resources.
- There are benefits and costs to the economic choices people and businesses make.
- Personal decisions influence how and why people spend their money.
- People and businesses interact as they make and sell different goods and services.
- Making goods and services require people to have certain skills and knowledge.
- Unit Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- choice
- benefits
- trade
- service
- economy
- skills
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts
- “Making Choices”
- “Let It Grow: The Blooming Business of Farmers’ Markets”
- “Lucky Hans”
- “From Fruit to Jam: A Tasty List of Choices”
- “Pet Shopping”
- Vocabulary Practice Texts
- “The Bread Business”
- “Working in a Rice Paddy”
- “Cooking Club”
- Decodable Readings
- “Computer Whiz Kid”
- “Volunteer!”
- “The Milkmaid”
- “The King’s Road”
- “The Shade Tree”
- “Two Foolish Brothers”
- “Try Something New!”
- “A New Business”
- “Where Do You Get Your Produce?”
- Complex Anchor Texts
- Phonics and Word Study Skills
- Suffixes: -able, -ful, -less
- Prefixes: dis-, un-, pre-, re-
- Fluency Skills
- Inflection/Intonation: stress
- Phrasing: units of meaning in complex sentences
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Apply previously taught metacognitive strategies
- Apply previously taught fix-up strategies
- Comprehension Skills
- Describe procedural relationships and connections in a text
- Compare and contrast key details in two texts on the same topic
- Determine the central message or lesson in a story
- Recount story details
- Explain how illustrations convey character
- Use text features to locate information relevant to a topic
- Analyze how stanzas build on early sections of a poem
- Vocabulary Strategies
- Distinguish literal from nonliteral language
- Use context clues to determine the meaning of words and phrases
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- frugality
- founders
- booming
- portions
- briskly
- wince
- unmanageable
- staggered
- ideal
- affect
- method
- technique
- Writing Skills
- Process Writing Skills:
- Multimedia Presentation: Students conduct research, create a multimedia presentation about a topic related to the unit, and present it to their peers.
- Grammar Skills:
- Use coordinating and subordinating conjunctions to produce compound and complex sentences
- Form and use regular and irregular verbs
- Process Writing Skills:
Unit 10: Forces and Interactions
Key Learning(s)
- Essential Question:
- How does understanding science help us achieve our goals?
- Enduring Understandings:
- Objects in contact exert forces on each other.
- Movement is caused by unbalanced forces action on an object.
- By observing and measuring patterns of motion, we can predict how things will move.
- We can use our knowledge of forces and interactions to solve problems.
- Forces of nature, such as gravity and magnetism, have direct impact on people’s lives and have inspired literature throughout history.
- Unit Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- force
- motion
- position
- movement
- energy
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts
- “Poems of Movement”
- “What Makes Things Move?”
- “The Energy of the Thunder Beings”
- “Magnetic Fields”
- “The Wind”
- Vocabulary Practice Texts
- “The Science Experiment”
- “What Is a Thunderstorm?
- “Mya’s Magnet Report”
- Decodable Readings
- “Spin, Twist, and Zoom!”
- “How Not to Win at Baseball”
- “The Tortoise and the Hare”
- “Nature’s Forces: Thunder and Lightning”
- “Androcles and the Lion”
- “The Merchant’s Donkey”
- “Solar Eclipse”
- “Arctic Meltdown”
- “Why Didn’t I Think of That?”
- Complex Anchor Texts
- Phonics and Word Study Skills
- Unaccented Final Syllables: -en, -on, -ain, -in (schwa sound)
- Suffixes: -ing, -ment, -ness
- Related words (e.g., solve/solution, invent/invention, explain/explanation)
- Fluency Skills
- Confirm or correct word recognition and understanding
- Inflection/Intonation: volume
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Apply previously taught metacognitive strategies
- Apply previously taught fix-up strategies
- Comprehension Skills
- Distinguish reader’s point of view from that of the narrator
- Describe procedural relationships and connections in a text
- Recount key story details
- Compare and contrast two texts on the same topic
- Vocabulary Strategies
- Use context clues to determine the meaning of words and phrases
- Distinguish literal from nonliteral language
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- grooves
- commotion
- predictable
- observe
- peered
- suspected
- gust
- cascading
- repel
- aligns
- reactions
- particles
- Writing Skills
- Process Writing Skills:
- Poetry Writing: Students study mentor poetry and draft, revise, and edit their own poems.
- Grammar Skills:
- Use coordinating and subordinating conjunctions to produce compound and complex sentences
- Form and use irregular verbs
- Form and use possessives
- Process Writing Skills:
Grade 4
Click the + to expand.
- Unit 1: Observing Nature
- Unit 2: Characters’ Actions and Reactions
- Unit 3: Government in Action
- Unit 4: Understanding Different Points of View
- Unit 5: Technology for Tomorrow
- Unit 6: Confronting Challenges
- Unit 7: The Transcontinental Railroad
- Unit 8: Earth Changes
- Unit 9: Resources and Their Impact
- Unit 10: The Power of Electricity
Unit 1: Observing Nature
Key Learning(s)
- Essential Question:
- How do we respond to nature?
- Enduring Understandings:
- Knowledge of the natural world is based on observation and inquiry.
- Plants and animals, including humans, interact with and depend on each other and their environment.
- Interactions with the natural world bring up strong feelings and emotions in people.
- Nature’s beauty and encounters with nature are recurring themes in literature. Characters reveal themselves through their responses to nature.
- Unit Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- appreciate
- encounter
- interact
- nature
- observe
- sense
- sensory
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts
- “A Bird’s Free Lunch”
- “The Reeds and the River”
- “Starting Off”
- “The Secret Spring”
- “Delight in Nature”
- Vocabulary Practice Texts
- “My Window”
- “Nature Walk”
- “The Hidden Lake”
- Decodable Readings
- “Happy Birding!”
- “My Dad, Storm Chaser”
- “The Birdseed Thief”
- “Why Trees Lose Their Leaves”
- “Take a Deeper Look”
- “Waiting for Spring”
- “Journal of Joe Case”
- “Whoa, Molly!”
- “Birch Bark Canoes”
- Complex Anchor Texts
- Phonics and Word Study Skills
- Short a and long a (a_e, ai, ay, ei, ea)
- Short e and long e (e_e, ea, ee, ey, y, ie, e)
- Short o and long o (o_e, oa, ow, oe, o)
- Fluency Skill
- Expression: characterization and feeling
- Confirm and correct word recognition
- Inflection/Intonation: volume
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Ask questions
- Create mental images
- Reread to clarify or confirm understanding
- Comprehension Skills
- Identify key details and determine a main idea
- Compare and contrast narrative points of view
- Summarize a text
- Analyze first-person point of view
- integrate information from multiple texts to demonstrate knowledge
- Compare and contrast treatment of themes in literature
- Explain the differences between poetry and prose
- Vocabulary Strategy
- Recognize and explain the meanings of idioms
- Explain the meaning of similes and metaphors
- Use context clues to determine the meaning of words and phrases
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- General Academic Vocabulary
- alight
- solitary
- vast
- haughty
- shield
- strolls
- shimmering
- winding
- jaunt
- scrawny
- vegetation
- Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- stationary
- General Academic Vocabulary
- Writing Skills
- Text-Based Prompt Writing Skills:
- Informative/Explanatory Writing: Students use facts and evidence from provided print and multimedia sources to plan, draft, revise, and edit an informative essay based on a prompt based on the unit topic.
- Grammar Skills:
- Form and use prepositional phrases
- Use the correct order of adjectives within phrases
- Recognize and correct inappropriate fragments
- Text-Based Prompt Writing Skills:
Unit 2: Characters’ Actions and Reactions
Key Learning(s)
- Essential Question:
- How do we reveal ourselves to others?
- Enduring Understandings:
- Writers can tell the same story in more than one genre, such as drama and a novel or short story.
- Characters’ actions and reactions influence a story’s plot, as well as other characters.
- Real-live actions and reactions have effects on real events and people.
- Writers intentionally choose characters’ words and actions to reveal the characters to the reader.
- Unit Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- actions
- connect
- reactions
- communicate
- interact
- relationships
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts
- “Dorothy Meets the Scarecrow”
- “How Dorothy Saved the Scarecrow”
- “Peter Meets Wendy”
- “Peter’s Shadow”
- “You Are Old, Father William”
- Vocabulary Practice Texts
- “The First Impression”
- “A Family of Ducklings”
- “My Restaurant Review: The Grill”
- Decodable Readings
- “Bike Trouble”
- “Who Is the Trickster?”
- “The Wonderful World of Oz”
- “Cup of Tea”
- “Book Review: Eruption!”
- “Peter, the Wild Boy”
- “Princess of Time”
- “Hattie’s Tantrum”
- “Melamut the Crocodile”
- Complex Anchor Texts
- Phonics and Word Study Skills
- Short i and Long i (i_e, igh, y, ie, i)
- Short u and Long u (u_e, ue, ewe, u)
- Closed syllable patterns
- Fluency Skill
- Speed/Pacing: fast
- Pausing: short pauses
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Draw inferences
- Make connections
- Stop and think about the author’s purpose
- Read out loud to support comprehension
- Comprehension Skills
- Summarize a text
- Describe a character in depth
- Make connections between a story and an oral presentation of the text
- Compare and contrast the treatment of similar themes in stories
- Analyze author’s use of descriptive language in a poem
- Vocabulary Strategies
- Understand and use words that signal actions, emotions, and states of being
- Use context clues to determine the meaning of words and phrases
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- encounter
- tumbling
- tedious
- earnestly
- mischievous
- flutters
- dejectedly
- rankling
- appalled
- sinking feeling
- contemptuously
- overrated
- Writing Skills
- Text-Based Prompt Writing Skills:
- Opinion Writing: Students respond to a prompt by stating opinions about characters and support their opinions with evidence from texts.
- Grammar Skills:
- Use words and phrases for effect
- Correct comma usage
- Use model auxiliaries to express possibilities
- Use subject-verb agreement
- Use pronoun-antecedent agreement
- Text-Based Prompt Writing Skills:
Unit 3: Government in Action
Key Learning(s)
- Essential Question:
- How can government influence the way we live?
- Enduring Understandings:
- Local, state, and federal governments have and share different powers and responsibilities.
- All levels of government provide services that promote the well-being of society, such as education, transportation, and the protection of people’s health and safety.
- Elected representatives, government officials, and volunteers work together at all levels of government to solve problems in time of crisis.
- We can learn about power and the role of government not just through nonfiction but also through fiction and fictional scenarios.
- Unit Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- function
- powers
- solve
- levels
- services
- society
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts
- “Solving Problems”
- “The First Town Meeting”
- “The State Government and Its Citizens”
- “Stanley’s Release”
- “A Nation’s Strength”
- Vocabulary Practice Texts
- “Bit by Bit”
- “A New Playground?”
- “Get On Your Feet”
- Decodable Readings
- “Mayor Sam”
- “Art Money”
- “Saving Yellowstone”
- “One Giant Leap”
- “The Wolves Return”
- “Fifty States Plus”
- “My Museum Visit”
- “Papa Joe Retires”
- “Go Botono”
- Phonics and Word Study Skills
- Open syllable patterns
- Vowel team syllable patterns
- Vowel-r syllable patterns
- Complex Anchor Texts
- Fluency Skills
- Inflection/Intonation: pitch
- Phrasing: units of meaning in complex sentences
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Distinguish between important and unimportant information
- Summarize and synthesize
- Read more slowly and think about the words
- Reread to clarify or confirm understanding
- Comprehension Skills
- Describe the problem/solution structure of a text
- Explain the problem/solution relationship and connections between events or ideas in a text
- interpret information presented visually (sidebars, charts, photos)
- Draw inferences
- Integrate information from two texts
- Identify key details and determine the main idea of a text
- Identify rhyme scheme in poetry
- Vocabulary Strategy
- Use context clues to determine the meaning of words and phrases
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- General Academic Vocabulary
- crisis
- adversity
- delegated
- indispensable
- liberties
- anxious
- comprehend
- tyrannical
- urgency
- Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- relief funds
- feeble
- infrastructure
- General Academic Vocabulary
- Writing Skills
- Process Writing Skills:
- Informative/Explanatory Writing: Students use facts and details from research sources to plan, draft, revise, and edit informative essay about a self-selected topic related to the unit.
- Grammar Skills:
- Use model auxiliaries to express possibilities
- Form and use the present progressive tense
- Use commas and quotation marks to mark direct speech and quotations from a text.
- Process Writing Skills:
Unit 4: Understanding Different Points of View
Key Learning(s)
- Essential Question:
- What do we learn when we look at the world through the eyes of others?
- Enduring Understandings:
- Realistic fiction stories contain characters that could exist in the real world and events that could really happen.
- Every story is narrated from a distinctive literary point of view and offers a unique perspective on events.
- Authors intentionally use point of view and perspective to influence what a reader knows and feels about both the characters and the events in a story.
- People’s unique perspectives influence the way they understand both other people and events in the world around them.
- Unit Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- point of view
- influence
- realistic fiction
- perspective
- narrator
- distinctive
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts
- “Here Boy”
- “Something Uneasy in the Air”
- “Ready to Race”
- “Training”
- “The Drum”
- Vocabulary Practice Texts
- “Battle of the Carmens”
- “Why Emus Can’t Fly”
- “Ballet Shoes”
- Decodable Readings
- “Beach Views”
- “Spacewalk: Book or Movie?”
- “A Dog’s Life”
- “Two Farmers”
- “The Elephant and the Blind Men”
- “Balto, A Heroic Dog”
- “A Turkey?”
- “Dog Debate”
- “After Dark”
- Complex Anchor Texts
- Phonics and Word Study Skills
- Compound words
- Silent e syllable pattern
- Consonant -le syllable pattern
- Fluency Skills
- Expression: anticipation/mood
- Speed/Pacing: slow
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Ask questions
- Create mental images
- Read on to clarify or confirm understanding
- Stop and think about the author’s purpose
- Comprehension Skills
- Distinguish reader’s point of view from that of the narrator or characters
- Describe how each part of a drama builds on previous parts
- Explain how illustrations contribute to a story
- Compare and contrast stories with similar characters
- Recount story details
- Analyze point of view in poetry
- Vocabulary Strategies
- Use context clues to determine the meaning of words and phrases
- Distinguish literal for nonliteral language
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- concerned
- skidded
- contraption
- involuntarily
- dangled
- dank
- rein
- taken down a peg
- accustomed
- breaking in
- weariness
- coaxing
- Writing Skills
- Text-Based Prompt Writing Skills:
- Narrative Writing: Students study mentor texts in order to plan, draft, revise, and edit a narrative response to a prompt about a story.
- Grammar Skills:
- Form and use the past progressive tense
- Form and use the present progressive tense
- Correctly use frequently confused words (e.g., their, they’re, there)
- Form and use prepositional phrases
- Text-Based Prompt Writing Skills:
Unit 5: Technology for Tomorrow
Key Learning(s)
- Essential Question:
- How do we make decisions about developing new technology?
- Enduring Understandings:
- Technology can be controversial and have both positive and negative impacts on society.
- We design and develop robots to do most jobs efficiently.
- Automation continues to change how we live and work.
- Society’s needs, as well as other motivations, drive the development of new technologies.
- Unit Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- automation
- efficient
- efficiency
- society
- develop
- impact
- technology
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts
- “Humans and Robots Can Work Together”
- “Robots Will Take Professional Jobs”
- “Who’s Driving”
- “Rise of the Drones”
- “Sun Tracks”
- Vocabulary Practice Texts
- “Digital Detectives”
- “A.I. Wheels”
- “Riding to Work”
- Decodable Readings
- “Water Power”
- “Fridge Time”
- “Robots in the Restaurant”
- “A Green Roof”
- “Train Surprise”
- “The Solar Challenge”
- “Let’s Go Green”
- “Stargazers”
- “A Drone Is Not a Toy”
- Complex Anchor Texts
- Phonics Skills
- Hard and soft c and g
- r-Controlled vowels spelled with ar, or, oar, and ore, er, ir, and ur
- Fluency Skills
- Pausing: full stops
- Inflection/Intonation: anticipation/mood
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Draw inferences
- Distinguish between important and unimportant information
- Read out loud to support comprehension
- Read more slowly and think about the words
- Comprehension Skills
- Describe the cause/effect structure of a text
- Explain the cause/effect relationships and connections between events and ideas in a text
- Explain how an author uses reasons and evidence to support points in a text
- Summarize a text
- Integrate information from two texts on the same topic
- Describe the problem/solution structure of a text.
- Vocabulary Strategy
- Use context clues to determine the meaning of words and phrases
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- General Academic Vocabulary
- retrieve
- efficiency
- salary
- specialized
- impaired
- precautions
- pedestrian
- beneficial
- outweigh
- inevitably
- Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- sensors
- regulated
- General Academic Vocabulary
- Writing Skills
- Process Writing Skills:
- Opinion Writing: Students formulate opinions about a technology-related issue and plan, draft, revise, and edit an essay using reasons and evidence from unit texts and other sources.
- Grammar Skills:
- Form and use the progressive verb tenses
- Use relative adverbs
- Use relative pronouns
- Process Writing Skills:
Unit 6: Confronting Challenges
Key Learning(s)
- Essential Question:
- How do we overcome obstacles?
- Enduring Understandings:
- A quest is a story in which the main character goes on a difficult journey to accomplish a mission or goal. Many traditional tales are quest tales.
- Every character responds to challenges in different ways, and these actions often reveal a character’s traits.
- Different cultures present and explore universal themes and human experiences in their own unique ways.
- Analyzing how characters confront challenges helps reveal a story’s theme.
- Unit Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- confront
- mission
- theme
- quest
- challenge
- obstacles
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts
- “Sugar Maple and Woodpecker”
- “The Valiant Little Tailor”
- “Hercules Quest”
- “Estrella and the Emerald Ring”
- “Humanity”
- Vocabulary Practice Texts
- “Syrup Season”
- “A Hunter in Nature”
- “Recon Connie”
- Decodable Readings
- “This Land”
- “Blizzard!”
- “Chi Li and the Serpent”
- “Athens”
- “Protecting Sea Turtles”
- “Kate Shelley: A Young Hero”
- “Murth to Earth”
- “Avalanche Safety”
- “Paul Bunyan and the Troublesome Monsquitoes”
- Complex Anchor Texts
- Phonics and Word Study Skills
- Adverb Suffixes: -ly, -ily, -ways, -wise
- Variant vowels with oo (book) and oo (booth)
- Variant vowels with ew, ue, ue, ould, ull spellings
- Adjective Suffixes: -ful, -ous, ible, able, -some
- Fluency Skills
- Inflection/Intonation: pitch
- Expression: dramatic expression
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Summarize and synthesize
- Make connections
- Reread to clarify or confirm understanding
- Read on to clarify or confirm understanding
- Comprehension Skills
- Describe characters, setting, and events
- Infer and determine the theme of a story
- Compare and contrast the treatment of similar themes
- Summarize a text
- Compare and contrast the pattern of events in stories
- Analyze rhyme, meter, and theme of poetry
- Vocabulary Strategies
- Use context clues to determine the meaning of words and phrases
- Identify words with mythological allusions
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- General Academic Vocabulary
- bored
- fatigue
- valor
- wrathfully
- undertaking
- stride
- subsided
- animated
- attentive
- lustrous
- glimpse
- Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- sap
- General Academic Vocabulary
- Writing Skills
- Text-Based Prompt Writing:
- Informative, Opinion, and Narrative Writing: Each week of the unit, students analyze a prompt, read source texts, and write a response to the prompt.
- Grammar Skills:
- Use modal auxiliaries to convey various conditions
- Choose punctuation for effect
- Use suffixes
- Use relative adverbs
- Text-Based Prompt Writing:
Unit 7: The Transcontinental Railroad
Key Learning(s)
- Essential Question:
- How do communities evolve?
- Enduring Understandings:
- A community can be a location or a group that shares common characteristics.
- Many factors shape the United States; immigrant communities play a central role in this process.
- In the 1860s, railroads connected communities across North America, allowing for settlement and expansion of what is today the United States.
- Innovations in transportation and communication technology reshape and impact communities.
- The expansion of the United States had catastrophic effects on Native American people and communities.
- Unit Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- advances
- expansion
- impact
- communities
- devastating
- settler
- settle
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts
- “Rail Tycoons”
- “Building the Transcontinental Railroad”
- The Chinese Railroad Workers”
- “The Railroads Impact on Native Americans”
- ‘Concord Hymn”
- Vocabulary Practice Texts
- “First Day of Work”
- “Giving Back”
- “My Family Tree”
- Decodable Readings
- “Meeting the President”
- “We Declare Independence!”
- “The Golden Spike”
- “A Train Trip”
- “The Pony Express”
- “Cattle Drive”
- “Ahead of Her Time”
- “My Trip to the Black Hills”
- Complex Anchor Texts
- Phonics and Word Study Skills
- Diphthongs spelled with oi and oy
- Diphthongs spelled with ou and ow
- Prefixes: trans-, pro-, sub-, super-, inter-
- Homophones
- Fluency Skills
- Confirm or correct word recognition and understanding
- Speed/Pacing; varied
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Apply previously taught metacognitive strategies
- Apply previously taught fix-up strategies
- Comprehension Skills
- Describe the overall chronological structure of a text
- Explain events or ideas in a text
- Interpret information presented visually
- Explain how the author uses reasons and evidence to support points in a text
- Describe the overall cause/effect structure of a text
- Draw inferences
- Integrate information from two text to speak knowledgably about a topic
- Vocabulary Strategy
- Use context clues to determine the meaning of words and phrases
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- General Academic Vocabulary
- grueling
- incentive
- isolated
- recruiting
- set a record
- roamed
- plentiful
- devastating
- Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- tycoons
- transcontinental
- testifying
- descendants
- General Academic Vocabulary
- Writing Skills
- Process Writing Skills:
- Narrative Nonfiction Writing: Students choose and research a historical time period and plan, draft, revise, and edit a story, incorporating their research.
- Grammar Skills:
- Use correct capitalization
- Use correct punctuation
- Use commas before coordinating conjunctions in compound sentences
- Choose words and phrases to convey ideas precisely
- Process Writing Skills:
Unit 8: Earth Changes
Key Learning(s)
- Essential Question:
- How do Earth’s natural processes impact our lives?
- Enduring Understandings:
- Earthquakes are caused by shifts in Earth’s tectonic plates. The sudden release of energy moves in a waves through the Earth’s crust, shaking Earth’s surface.
- Volcanoes form when magma from within the Earth’s upper mantle works its way through the Earth’s crust. Eruptions of hot lava, gas, and ash are caused by pressure beneath the Earth’s surface.
- Natural disasters are sudden and violent events that can threaten people’s lives and change Earth’s surface.
- People can study the forces that cause natural disasters to better understand them and respond to them.
- Natural disasters are emotional experiences for those who live through them and are often subject to firsthand accounts.
- Unit Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- destruction
- events
- pressure
- energy
- natural disaster
- violent
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts
- “Earthquakes”
- “In Mexico City”
- “Volcanoes”
- “The Eruption of Vesuvius”
- “Negotiations with a Volcano”
- Vocabulary Practice Texts
- “The Signs of a Tsunami”
- “Bright Colors – Beware!”
- “First Day of School”
- Decodable Readings
- “A Great Tale”
- “Slow and Fast Change”
- “Tsunami”
- “First Essay”
- “Instant Canyon”
- “The Mount St. Helens Volcano”
- “Quaking Earth”
- “Panuk’s Island”
- “Escape from Pompeii”
- Phonics and Word Study Skills
- Negative prefixes: de-, un-, in-, im-, dis-
- Greek and Latin roots: geo, archae, rupt
- Variant vowels spelled with au, al, aw
- Fluency Skills
- Inflection/Intonation: volume
- Confirm or correct word recognition and understanding
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Apply previously taught metacognitive strategies
- Apply previously taught fix-up strategies
- Comprehension Skills
- Describe the overall cause/effect structure of a text
- Interpret information presented visually
- Identify genre features : Firsthand accounts
- Compare and contrast a firsthand account and secondhand account of the same topic/event
- Summarize a text
- Integrate information from two text to speak knowledgably about a topic
- Refer to details and examples in a text to draw inferences
- Analyze personification, repetition, and theme in poetry
- Vocabulary Strategy
- Use context clues to determine the meaning of words and phrases, including those with multiple meanings
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- General Academic Vocabulary
- collided
- magnitude
- wrenching
- ominously
- distinctive
- substantially
- far-reaching
- hazardous
- dauting
- reluctantly
- immersed
- Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- molten
- General Academic Vocabulary
- Writing Skills
- Process Writing Skills:
- Research Project: Students choose a topic related to Earth science, select sources, and plan, draft, revise, and edit a research project incorporating facts and details from sources.
- Grammar Skills:
- Form and use prepositional phrases
- Produce complete sentences, recognizing and correct inappropriate fragments and run-ons
- Use a comma with a coordinating conjunction in a compound sentence.
- Process Writing Skills:
Unit 9: Resources and Their Impact
Key Learning(s)
- Essential Question:
- How does access to resources influence people’s lives?
- Enduring Understandings:
- Economies depend on the resources for use and how those resources are used.
- Communities are often shaped largely by the resources available to them.
- Protecting resources is important to sustaining long-term availability and use.
- Economic hardship and the struggle to improve worker’s lives are common topics in literature.
- Some narrative poetry reimagines important historical events through the use of vivid imagery and figurative language.
- Unit Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- resources
- economy
- economic
- access
- dependent
- protect
- sustain
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts
- “Seattle: Up and Down – and Up Again
- “Cesar: Yes, We Can!”
- “Natural Resources and Workers”
- “Dust Dance”
- “They Were My People”
- Vocabulary Practice Texts
- “The Controversy of Quinoa”
- “California Gold”
- “Gandhi’s Stand”
- Decodable Readings
- “Shipwreck!”
- “Take Action for Rain Forests”
- “Delores Huerta”
- “The Buffalo”
- “A Brighter Future”
- “John Henry”
- “Stone Tools”
- “A Cheer for Solar!”
- “Dust Storm Days”
- Complex Anchor Texts
- Phonics and Word Study Skills
- Noun suffixes: -dom, -ity, -tion, -ment, -ness
- Latin roots: miss, agri, duc/duct, man
- r-Controlled vowels syllable patterns spelled with air, are, ear
- Fluency Skills
- Inflection/Intonation: stress
- Phrasing: units of meaning in complex sentences
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Apply previously taught metacognitive strategies
- Apply previously taught fix-up strategies
- Comprehension Skills
- Describe the overall cause/effect structure of a text
- Explain how an author uses reasons and evidence to support points in a text
- Explain events or concepts in a Social Studies text
- Determine the theme of a poem
- Refer to the structural elements in poetry
- Integrate information from two text to speak knowledgably about a topic
- Identify key ideas and determine the main idea
- Compare and contrast the treatment of similar themes in two poems
- Vocabulary Strategies
- Use context clues to determine the meaning of words and phrases, including topic-specific vocabulary
- Understand figurative language in poetry
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- General Academic Vocabulary
- crippled
- abundance
- booming
- crammed
- wages
- ratcheted
- spindly
- tearing up
- withered
- Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- agricultural
- union
- General Academic Vocabulary
- Writing Skills
- Process Writing Skills:
- Multimedia Presentation: Students conduct research, create a multimedia presentation about a topic related to the unit, and present it to their peers.
- Grammar Skills:
- Use correct capitalization
- Choose words and phrases to convey ideas precisely
- Ensure subject-verb agreement
- Ensure pronoun-antecedent agreement
- Process Writing Skills:
Unit 10: The Power of Electricity
Key Learning(s)
- Essential Question:
- Where do scientific discoveries lead us?
- Enduring Understandings:
- Energy can be transferred from place to place by sound, light, heat, and electric currents.
- Energy can be converted from one form to another.
- Scientific discoveries build upon one another and can directly impact the way humas live.
- Since the harnessing of AC/DC currents in the late 1800s, many people have grown to rely on electricity in order to function in daily life.
- Although female inventors historically contributed to the field of electricity, they were often denied true recognition in their lifetimes because of their gender.
- Unit Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- invention
- generate
- energy
- experiment
- grid
- network
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts
- “Power Restored in India”
- “Benjamin Franklin: The Dawn of Electrical Technology”
- “The Power of Electricity”
- “Two Forgotten Electrical Inventors”
- “Simplicity of Electricity”
- Vocabulary Practice Texts
- “What Now?”
- “Developing Code”
- “Inventing a Better Bulb”
- Decodable Readings
- “Tesla: Ahead of His Time”
- “No More Mules”
- “Blackout, 1965”
- “No Power? No Problem!”
- “Zap!”
- “Hoover Dam”
- “My Amazing Trip”
- “Shocking!”
- “A Night in Tesla’s Lab”
- Complex Anchor Texts
- Phonics and Word Study Skills
- Adding endings with spelling changes
- Final -le and -en
- Latin and Greek roots: ven, migr, graph, mit/miss, aud
- Fluency Skills
- Confirm or correct word recognition and understanding
- Inflection/Intonation: volume
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Apply previously taught metacognitive strategies
- Apply previously taught fix-up strategies
- Comprehension Skills
- Explain how an author uses reasons and evidence to support points in a text
- Explain ideas or concepts in a scientific text
- Interpret information presented visually
- Identify key details and determine the main idea
- Integrate information from two texts to speak knowledgeably on a topic
- Analyze humor and rhyme in poetry
- Vocabulary Strategy
- Use context clues to determine the meaning of words and phrases, including topic-specific vocabulary
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- snarled
- outage
- influential
- sandwiched
- malfunctions
- domino effect
- faulty
- nominated
- prominent
- projection
- sputtering
- Writing Skills
- Process Writing Skills:
- Poetry Writing: Students study mentor poetry and draft, revise, and edit their own poems.
- Grammar Skills:
- Form and use progressive verb tenses
- Order adjectives within sentences according to conventional patterns
- Choose words and phrases to convey ideas precisely
- Process Writing Skills:
Grade 5
Click the + to expand.
- Unit 1: Cultivating Natural Resources
- Unit 2: Developing Characters’ Relationships
- Unit 3: The U.S. Constitution: Then and Now
- Unit 4: Recognizing Author’s Point of View
- Unit 5: Technology’s Impact on Society
- Unit 6: Up Against the Wild
- Unit 7: Conflicts That Shaped a Nation
- Unit 8: Water - Fact and Fiction
- Unit 9: The Economic Development of Cities
- Unit 10: Transforming Matter
Unit 1: Cultivating Natural Resources
Key Learning(s)
- Essential Question:
- How do we decide which resources we should develop?
- Enduring Understandings:
- All animals, including humans, directly or indirectly depend on plants to convert the sun’s energy into food.
- As scientific knowledge and technology progresses, the ways in which people develop natural resources changes.
- Human development of resources has a lasting impact on the natural world.
- There are costs and benefits of developing resources.
- Unit Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- resource
- develop
- cultivate
- environment
- cost
- benefit
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts
- “The Structure of a Corn Plant”
- “The Future of a Crop”
- “A Short History of a Special Plant”
- “The Science of Growing Corn”
- “A Girl’s Garden”
- Vocabulary Practice Texts
- “A successful Experiment”
- “Helper Plants”
- “A school on Wheels”
- Decodable Readings
- “Ocean Flower”
- “The Mango”
- “Paul Bunyan and the Great Popcorn Blizzard”
- “Hitchhiker Weeds”
- “An Unlikely Pair”
- “A Tale of Three Sisters”
- “Friends”
- “Intergalactic Space Force”
- “The World’s Only Corn Palace”
- Complex Anchor Texts
- Phonics and Word Study Skills
- Short vowels review
- Long vowels review
- r-Controlled Vowels spelled er, ir, ur review
- r-Controlled Vowels spelled ear & ure
- Fluency Skill
- Speed/Pacing: fast
- Confirm or correct word recognition and understanding
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Ask questions
- Create mental images
- Reread to clarify or confirm understanding
- Read on to clarify or confirm understanding
- Comprehension Skills
- Identify key details and determine a main idea
- Draw on information from text and graphic features: charts and graphs
- Explain cause/effect relationships in a text
- Determine the author’s point of view and purpose
- Integrate information from several texts on the same topic
- Analyze the features and structure of poetry
- Vocabulary Strategy
- Use context clues to determine the meaning of words and phrases
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- General Academic Vocabulary
- consumers
- emerge
- alternative
- combat
- integrity
- favorable
- dominate
- inherently
- resilient
- sophisticated
- Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- adaptable
- mutually beneficial
- General Academic Vocabulary
- Writing Skills
- Text-Based Prompt Writing Skills:
- Informative/Explanatory Writing: Students use facts and evidence from provided print and multimedia sources to plan, draft, revise, and edit an informative essay based on a prompt based on the unit topic.
- Grammar Skills:
- Verb tense to convey sequence (order of events)
- Use conjunctions correctly
- Combine sentences for meaning, interest, and style
- Text-Based Prompt Writing Skills:
Unit 2: Developing Characters’ Relationships
Key Learning(s)
- Essential Question:
- Why do we value certain qualities in people?
- Enduring Understandings:
- Realistic fiction is a genre of literature in which authors create characters who could exist in real life, flaws and all, as well as plots that could actually happen.
- Authors use their craft to communicate a character’s traits to readers, and how these traits are valued.
- Certain character traits, such as bravery and inquisitiveness, are valued across much of literature.
- Characters in stories can teach readers real-life problem-solving and relationship skills.
- Unit Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- character trait
- communicate
- craft
- literature
- realistic fiction
- relationships
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts
- “The Drive Down”
- “Grandpop’s Surprise”
- “Sky-Glitter”
- “Ernie’s Secret”
- “Casey at the Bat”
- Vocabulary Practice Texts
- “My Big Brother”
- “Keep on Going”
- “Hanging On”
- Decodable Readings
- “The Ant and the Dove”
- “Simple Things”
- “City Kid, Country Kid”
- “The Legend of Marigold”
- “E.B. White”
- “All Together Now”
- “The Contest”
- “Danger Offshore”
- “Early Inspirations”
- Complex Anchor Texts
- Phonics and Word Study Skills
- r-Controlled Vowels spelled air, are, ar, or, our, ore
- Closed syllable patterns
- Open syllable patterns
- Fluency Skill
- Expression - characterization/feelings
- Pausing – short pauses
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Draw inferences
- Make connections
- Stop and think about the author’s purpose
- Read out loud to support comprehension
- Comprehension Skills
- Summarize a text
- Compare and contrast two characters
- Compare and contrast varieties of English: dialect and register
- Analyze how visual elements contribute to meaning and tone
- Explain how a series of chapters, scenes, or stanzas fit together to provide structure to a novel
- Interpret figurative language, hyperbole, in poetry
- Vocabulary Strategy
- Use context clues to determine the meaning of words and phrases
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- stewing
- sprawled
- rambled
- expression
- bursting
- eventually
- tilted
- pacing
- desperate
- jagged
- clarified
- glinting
- Writing Skills
- Text-Based Prompt Writing Skills:
- Opinion Writing: Students respond to a prompt by stating opinions about characters and support their opinions with evidence from texts.
- Grammar Skills:
- Use verb tense to convey various times, sequences, states, and conditions
- Form and use the past perfect tense
- Recognize and correct inappropriate shifts in verb tense
- Choose words and phrases to convey ideas precisely
- Link ideas using words, phrases, and clauses
- Text-Based Prompt Writing Skills:
Unit 3: The U.S. Constitution: Then and Now
Key Learning(s)
- Essential Question:
- Why do laws continue to evolve?
- Enduring Understandings:
- The purpose of the U.S. Constitution was to outline the powers and responsibilities of the three branches of the federal government.
- The laws of the U.S. Constitution can be added to through the amendment process.
- Some laws need to be amended to eliminate bias and to expand the protection of people’s rights.
- Citizens may petition or protest for a cause and for changes made to laws.
- Determination is an important factor in working for changes in the U.S. Constitution.
- Unit Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- amend
- bias
- determination
- factor
- petition
- protest
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts
- “Creating the Constitution”
- “President Lyndon Johnson’s Voting Rights Act Address”
- “Fighting for the Vote”
- “Thurgood Marshall’s Liberty Medal Acceptance Speech”
- “The New Colossus”
- Vocabulary Practice Texts
- “The Constitution Sets an Example”
- “Ida B. Wells”
- “May, 1963”
- Decodable Readings
- “Strike!”
- “The Highest Court”
- “Susan B. Anthony”
- “To the Editor”
- “Breakfast First”
- “Mrs. Stowe and the President”
- “The March”
- “A New Justice”
- “The Presidential Medal of Freedom”
- Complex Anchor Texts
- Phonics and Word Study Skills
- Vowel-r syllable patterns
- Vowel team syllable patterns
- Consonant -le syllable patterns
- Fluency Skills
- Inflection/Intonation: pitch
- Phrasing: units of meaning in complex sentences
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Distinguish between important and unimportant information
- Summarize and synthesize
- Read more slowly and think about the words
- Reread to clarify or confirm understanding
- Comprehension Skills
- Explain the relationship between chronological events in a text
- Explain how an author uses reasons and evidence
- Compare and contrast the overall structure of concepts of two texts
- Determine two or more central ideas and explain how details support them
- Integrate information from two texts on the same topic
- Interpret figurative language, metaphor, in poetry
- Vocabulary Strategy
- Use context clues to determine the meaning of words and phrases
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- General Academic Vocabulary
- established
- principal
- dignity
- ingenious
- grievances
- suppressed
- anecdotes
- constrained
- redemption
- dissent
- Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- disenfranchised
- movement
- General Academic Vocabulary
- Writing Skills
- Process Writing Skills:
- Informative/Explanatory Writing: Students use facts and details from research sources to plan, draft, revise, and edit informative essay about a self-selected topic related to the unit.
- Grammar Skills:
- Explain the function of prepositions
- Review verb tenses
- Use conjunctions and prepositions correctly
- Use punctuation to separate items in a series
- Understand the rules for comma usage
- Process Writing Skills:
Unit 4: Recognizing Author’s Point of View
Key Learning(s)
- Essential Question:
- How can other perspectives help us evaluate the world?
- Enduring Understandings:
- Every work of poetry or prose has a distinct point of view, perspective, purpose, and theme(s).
- A narrator’s or speaker’s point of view and perspective influences how events are described and perceived.
- People of different genders, cultures, or perspectives may experience the same events or interactions differently.
- Reading about an event through another’s viewpoint offers readers an opportunity to build social awareness and expand their understanding of different perspectives, cultures, and contexts.
- Unit Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- point of view
- perspective
- influence
- narrator
- context
- distinct
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts
- “I Hear America Singing”
- “Caged Bird”
- “I Speak Spanish, Too”
- “Miguel’s Prophecy”
- “I, Too”
- Vocabulary Practice Texts
- “My First Month in America”
- “Learning two Languages at Once”
- “Cesar Chavez”
- Decodable Readings
- “The Miser”
- “Trees or Bikes”
- “Annie’s New Homeland”
- “Frank’s Fruits”
- “Strange Planet”
- “Judy Baca”
- “How the Milky Way Came to Be”
- “British English and Me”
- Complex Anchor Texts
- Phonics and Word Study Skills
- Silent e syllable patterns
- Homographs
- Variant vowels spelled with oo, ew, ue, ould, ull
- Fluency Skills
- Expression: anticipation/mood
- Speed/Pacing: slow
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Ask questions
- Create mental images
- Read on to clarify or confirm understanding
- Stop and think about the author’s purpose
- Comprehension Skills
- Explain how a series of sections provides the overall structure of a story
- Describe how a narrator’s point of view influences how events are described
- Summarize a text
- Compare and contrast themes in two stories in the same genre
- Describe a poet’s message and use of figurative language
- Vocabulary Strategies
- Use context clues to determine the meaning of words and phrases
- Determine the meaning of figurative language: idioms, adages, proverbs, similes
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- robust
- seldom
- drifting
- civilized
- irritated
- appreciated
- scowled
- accent
- drenched
- pitiful
- contorted
- grimace
- Writing Skills
- Text-Based Prompt Writing Skills:
- Narrative Writing: Students study mentor texts in order to plan, draft, revise, and edit a narrative response to a prompt about a story.
- Grammar Skills:
- Choose words and phrases to convey ideas precisely
- Form and use prefect verb tenses
- Recognize dialect and register: fragments and run-ons
- Develop realistic dialogue
- Use interjections correctly
- Use a comma to set off words “yes” and “no” and to indicate direct address
- Use conjunctions correctly
- Text-Based Prompt Writing Skills:
Unit 5: Technology’s Impact on Society
Key Learning(s)
- Essential Question:
- What value does technology bring to people’s lives?
- Enduring Understandings:
- Technological innovation can have both positive and negative effects.
- The costs and benefits of new technologies are not distributed evenly.
- Scientific engineering is often used to make work more efficient.
- Technological innovation is a crucial part of the economic development of the United States.
- The Industrial Revolution (the late 1700s and early 1800s) was a period when new technologies introduced widespread and rapid changes to society.
- Unit Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- industry
- manufacture
- progress
- process
- production
- revolution
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts
- “Technology and the Lowell Mill Girls”
- “Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin”
- Poems of the Industrial Age”
- “The Making of the Industrial Age”
- “The Secrets of Machines”
- Vocabulary Practice Texts
- “Banking on the Move”
- “Making the Most of My Digital Life”
- “Automation Nation”
- Decodable Readings
- “An Important Task”
- “Phone Booth”
- “Lucy Larcom’s New England”
- “Old Nails”
- “Truth of Fiction?”
- “An Adventure to Remember”
- “Day of Wonders”
- “Fad or Not?”
- “Samuel Morse: Inventor and Artist”
- Complex Anchor Texts
- Phonics Skills
- Noun suffixes: -ology, -ant, -er, -or, -ery
- Latin roots: spec, liter, vent, struct
- Homophones
- Fluency Skills
- Pausing: full stops
- Inflection/Intonation: anticipation/mood
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Draw inferences
- Distinguish between important and unimportant information
- Read out loud to support comprehension
- Read more slowly and think about the words
- Comprehension Skills
- Explain how a series of stanzas fit together to provide the overall structure of a poem
- Explain the problem/solution relationship between events in a text.
- Explain the chronological relationship between events in a text.
- Draw on information from text and graphic features
- Compare and contrast the overall structure of concepts in two texts
- Determine the theme of a poem
- Compare and contrast poems with similar themes
- Analyze the problem/solution text structure
- Analyze poets’ use of figurative language: personification
- Vocabulary Strategy
- Use context clues to determine the meaning of words and phrases
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- General Academic Vocabulary
- summoned
- launched
- tedious
- widespread
- flicker
- circulating
- contentedly
- originated
- revolutionized
- declined
- Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- confident
- forged
- General Academic Vocabulary
- Writing Skills
- Process Writing Skills:
- Opinion Writing: Students formulate opinions about a technology-related issue and plan, draft, revise, and edit an essay using reasons and evidence from unit texts and other sources.
- Grammar Skills:
- Correctly use frequently confused words (your, you’re)
- Ensure subject-verb agreement
- Ensure pronoun-antecedent agreement
- Expand, combine, and reduce sentences for meaning, reader/listener interest, and style
- Choose words and phrases to convey ideas precisely
- Process Writing Skills:
Unit 6: Up Against the Wild
Key Learning(s)
- Essential Question:
- What compels us to survive?
- Enduring Understandings:
- All works of fiction contain a theme or central message, that is supported by setting, character, plot and/or other story elements.
- Works of fiction may vary in tone, style, or structure, yet still explore similar themes.
- The universal themes explored in literature are those that speak to all people, regardless of gender or ethnicity.
- The conflict of “animal vs. nature” and the question of “what compels living things to survive?” are universal themes often explored literature.
- Literary characters and their response of challenges allow readers to learn valuable lessons and decision-making and problem-solving.
- Unit Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- challenge
- compel
- literature
- survive
- theme
- universal
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts
- “Androcles and the Lion”
- “Bushfire!”
- “The Law of Club and Fang”
- “The Knotted Branch”
- “Hunting Snake”
- Vocabulary Practice Texts
- “A Watery Escape”
- “A Goldminer Writes Home”
- “Finding Bison Bones, Changing History”
- Decodable Readings
- “Hiking in the Arizona Desert”
- “The Crow and the Pitcher”
- “Sinbad and the Valley of Diamonds”
- “A Tourist in Australia”
- “Search and Rescue Dogs”
- “Gold Rush!”
- “A Life-or-Death Challenge”
- “Finn McCool”
- “Survival in the Arctic”
- Complex Anchor Texts
- Phonics and Word Study Skills
- Variant vowels spelled with al, alk, all, au, aw
- Noun suffixes: -tion, -ty, -sion, -ness, -ment
- Compound words (closed, hyphenated, and open)
- Fluency Skills
- Inflection/Intonation: pitch
- Expression: dramatic expression
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Summarize and synthesize
- Make connections
- Reread to clarify or confirm understanding
- Comprehension Skills
- Compare and contrast two characters in a text
- Determine theme (based on how characters respond to challenges)
- Compare and contrast two stories with similar themes
- Analyze how visual elements contribute to meaning and tone
- Vocabulary Strategy
- Use context clues to determine the meaning of words and phrases
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- General Academic Vocabulary
- dense
- devour
- devastation
- priorities
- peril
- disconsolate
- confined
- forlorn
- notch
- ancient
- weary
- well-worn
- Writing Skills
- Text-Based Prompt Writing:
- Informative, Opinion, and Narrative Writing: Each week of the unit, students analyze a prompt, read source texts, and write a response to the prompt.
- Grammar Skills:
- Correct inappropriate fragments
- Use prepositions correctly
- Form and use the past perfect tense
- Expand sentences for meaning, reader/listener interest and style
- Text-Based Prompt Writing:
Unit 7: Conflicts That Shaped a Nation
Key Learning(s)
- Essential Question:
- How does conflict shape a society?
- Enduring Understandings:
- Wars, and other conflicts that are resolved with violence, have major social, emotional, economic, and political effects that have a lasting impact on the peoples and nations.
- People can have different views, perspectives, and experiences of conflict.
- Different groups of people participated in the American Revolution for different reasons, the final outcome of the war impacted these groups in positive and negative ways.
- A wide range of primary and secondary sources are important pieces when building a full and meaningful understanding of the past.
- Writers may choose to deal with important historical topics such as the Revolutionary War through historical fiction.
- Unit Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- cause
- conflict
- economic
- perspective
- resolve
- neutral
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts
- “The Banners of Freedom”
- “Road to Revolution”
- “Native Americans in the Revolution”
- “The Eighteenth of April”
- “Paul Revere’s Ride”
- Vocabulary Practice Texts
- “James Armistead Lafayette: A Patriot Spy”
- “Support the Patriots!”
- “Military Musicians in the American Revolution”
- Decodable Readings
- “Go Home”
- “From Protest to War”
- “Deborah Sampson, Revolutionary Soldier”
- “Dreams of Peace”
- “Letters”
- “Two Letters from Boston, Massachusetts – 1775”
- “Playwright for Freedom”
- “The Molly Pitchers”
- “Young Patriots”
- Complex Anchor Texts
- Phonics and Word Study Skills
- Final -le, -el, -al, and il,
- Final -er and -or
- Prefixes: re-, pre-, dis-, mis-
- Silent letters: kn, wr, gn, gh, wh
- Fluency Skills
- Confirm or correct word recognition and understanding
- Speed/Pacing; varied
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Apply previously taught metacognitive strategies
- Apply previously taught fix-up strategies
- Comprehension Skills
- Compare and contrast the varieties of English used in a text
- Compare and contrast the overall chronological structure of events in two or more texts
- Determine two or more main ideas and explain how details support them
- Explain how an author uses reasons and evidence to support particular supports
- Integrate information from several texts on the same topic
- Determine theme
- Analyze imagery in poetry
- Vocabulary Strategy
- Use context clues to determine the meaning of words and phrases
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- General Academic Vocabulary
- freedom
- deprivation
- endured
- neutral
- cause
- sympathized
- expedition
- realized
- Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- tyrants
- rebellion
- campaign
- troops
- General Academic Vocabulary
- Writing Skills
- Process Writing Skills:
- Narrative Nonfiction Writing: Students choose and research a historical time period and plan, draft, revise, and edit a story, incorporating their research.
- Grammar Skills:
- Use dialect and register, including fragments and run-ons, for effect
- Expand, combine, reduce sentences for meaning, reader/listener, and style
- Use correlative conjunctions correctly
- Choose punctuation for effect
- Process Writing Skills:
Unit 8: Water - Fact and Fiction
Key Learning(s)
- Essential Question:
- What does water mean to people and societies they live in?
- Enduring Understandings:
- Water is an essential resource that supports live on Earth.
- Water represents various things to different cultures around the world.
- Ancient Greek myths contain many sea gods and goddesses that exert their powers over mortals.
- Water plays an important role in the formation of communities and societies, and in people’s everyday lives.
- Freshwater and saltwater resources/oceans should be conserved and should be protected
- Unit Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- conserve
- essential
- protect
- resource
- represent
- society
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts
- “The Odyssey Begins”
- “Water-Wise Landscaper”
- “The Voyage”
- “Questions and Answers About Oceans”
- “Burn Lake”
- Vocabulary Practice Texts
- “Rainfall Saves the Day”
- “River of Ice”
- “Living in the Dead Sea”
- Decodable Readings
- “The Deepest Place on Earth”
- “Why the Sea is Salty”
- “Pecos Bill and the Tornado”
- “Great Women Swimmers”
- “Running the Rapids”
- “Why the Ocean Has Tides”
- “My Niagara Falls Adventure”
- “The Legend of Bluebird and Coyote”
- “The Great Barrier Reef”
- Complex Anchor Texts
- Phonics and Word Study Skills
- Diphthongs spelled with ou and ow
- Diphthongs spelled with oi and oy
- Latin roots: aud, vis, form, cede/ceed
- Adjective suffixes: -y, -ent, -ive, -ic, -ful
- Fluency Skills
- Inflection/Intonation: volume
- Confirm or correct word recognition and understanding
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Apply previously taught metacognitive strategies
- Apply previously taught fix-up strategies
- Comprehension Skills
- Compare and contrast characters in a story
- Explain how an author uses reasons and evidence
- Integrate information from two texts to speak knowledgeably about a topic
- Summarize a text
- Explain how parts a text fit together to provide the overall structure
- Compare and contrast two texts with similar themes
- Explain the relationship between events in a scientific text
- Determine multiple themes from a poem
- Vocabulary Strategy
- Determine the meaning of figurative language: similes, metaphors, personification
- Use context clues to determine the meaning of words and phrases, including those with multiple meanings
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- frantically
- scarce
- reservoirs
- provisions
- skillfully
- discovered
- finally
- surface
- environment
- average
- unique
- percent
- Writing Skills
- Process Writing Skills:
- Research Project: Students choose a topic related to Earth science, select sources, and plan, draft, revise, and edit a research project incorporating facts and details from sources.
- Grammar Skills:
- Expand sentences for meaning, reader/listener interest, and style
- Use a comma to separate an introductory element
- Use punctuation to separate items in a series
- Form and use the past perfect and present perfect verb tenses
- Recognize inappropriate shifts in verb tense
- Use verb tense to convey various conditions
- Process Writing Skills:
Unit 9: The Economic Development of Cities
Key Learning(s)
- Essential Question:
- How do economic changes impact society?
- Enduring Understandings:
- The first people to live in the area that becomes a city are part of that city’s history.
- The economic development of a city is tied to its geographic location, resources, industry, population, and culture.
- People migrate to cities looking for jobs and opportunities.
- The migration of people to cities is fueled by factors such as racism, bias, economic hardship, and government policy.
- The economy can experience both ups and downs, and often these ups and downs are cyclical.
- Unit Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- culture
- establish
- influence
- sustainable
- migration
- revitalize
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts
- “The Birth of Chicago”
- “Chicago: An American Hub”
- “The Great Migration and the Growth of Cities”
- “Old Cities Revitalize”
- “Skyscraper”
- Vocabulary Practice Texts
- “Welcome to Houston’s International District”
- “Philadelphia, Here We Come”
- “Helping Communities Grow in New York City”
- Decodable Readings
- “Two Foolish Brothers”
- “A Dreadful Day”
- “A Tragedy That Brought Change”
- “Gold Rush”
- “Times Changed!”
- “The Glassblower’s Daughter”
- “City or Suburbs?”
- “Out of Disaster”
- Complex Anchor Texts
- Phonics and Word Study Skills
- Irregular past-tense verbs
- Inflectional Endings with spelling changes (-ed, -ing)
- Prefixes: pro-, em-, en-, per-, im-
- Fluency Skills
- Inflection/Intonation: stress
- Phrasing: units of meaning in complex sentences
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Apply previously taught metacognitive strategies
- Apply previously taught fix-up strategies
- Comprehension Skills
- Draw on information from text and graphic features
- Explain how an author uses reasons and evidence
- Integrate information from several texts on the same topic
- Determine two or more central ideas and explain how key details support them
- Analyze poets’ use of figurative language in a poetry
- Vocabulary Strategies
- Use context clues to determine the meaning of words and phrases
- Determine or clarify the meaning of multiple-meaning words
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- dialects
- diverse
- hub
- ethnic
- perpetuating
- vibrancy
- contend
- discrimination
- apparently
- revitalize
- decaying
- rebound
- Writing Skills
- Process Writing Skills:
- Multimedia Presentation: Students conduct research, create a multimedia presentation about a topic related to the unit, and present it to their peers.
- Grammar Skills:
- Form and use present perfect and past perfect tenses
- Use subordinating conjunctions correctly with complex sentences
- Process Writing Skills:
Unit 10: Transforming Matter
Key Learning(s)
- Essential Question:
- Why do we measure and describe the world?
- Enduring Understandings:
- Our understanding of the world around us depends on the work of scientists who observe, measure, and describe matter, its properties, and its interactions.
- Everything is made of combined particles of matter called atoms, too small to be seen by the eye alone.
- The arrangement of atomic particles in matter determine its state (solid, liquid, or gas) and other properties.
- A chemical reaction occurs when two or more substances combine to form a difference substance.
- Scientific advances in many fields of science, including health and medicine, rely on the study of mater and its chemical interactions/reactions
- Unit Topic-Specific Vocabulary
- theory
- state
- property
- principle
- reaction
- categorize
- Readings
- Complex Anchor Texts
- “John Dalton: Father of the Atomic Theory”
- “Matter Is Everywhere!”
- “Changes in Matter”
- “Marie M. Daly” Biochemistry Pioneer”
- “The Snowflake”
- Vocabulary Practice Texts
- “When Balloons Matter”
- “Try This Egg-speriment!”
- “From Epsicle to Popsicle”
- Decodable Readings
- “About Sayeed”
- “Noisy!”
- “Balloon Ride”
- “Career Day”
- “Will Mount Kaska Erupt?”
- “My Dad the Street Chef”
- “Popcorn!”
- “What’s the Matter?”
- “What Makes It Pop?”
- Complex Anchor Texts
- Phonics and Word Study Skills
- Plurals: spelling changes/irregulars
- Greek and Latin science roots: se, mech, cycle, phys, chem
- Prefixes: re-, bio-, im-, ex-, micro-
- Fluency Skills
- Confirm or correct word recognition and understanding
- Inflection/Intonation: volume
- Metacognitive & Fix-Up Strategies
- Apply previously taught metacognitive strategies
- Apply previously taught fix-up strategies
- Comprehension Skills
- Explain the relationships between individuals, concepts, and events in a text
- Draw on information from text and graphic features
- Integrate information from several texts on the same topic
- Determine two or more central ideas and explain how details support them
- Draw inferences
- Analyze how multimedia contributes to meaning and tone
- Vocabulary Strategy
- Use context clues to determine the meaning of words and phrases
- Vocabulary Words Taught from Readings
- observations
- principle
- technical
- volume
- involves
- physical
- dissolves
- ingredients
- convert
- pursue
- opportunity
- dedicated
- Writing Skills
- Process Writing Skills:
- Poetry Writing: Students study mentor poetry and draft, revise, and edit their own poems.
- Grammar Skills:
- Use verbs to convey various times, sequences, states, and conditions
- Use correlative conjunctions correctly
- Use prepositions correctly
- Process Writing Skills: